


The Dream World

by Ima1



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Background Captain Hook | Killian Jones and Robin Hood, Captivity, F/F, mentions of torture, not in equal amounts, partly angsty partly humorous, turns out it's a happy ending after all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-03-06 03:05:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13402104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ima1/pseuds/Ima1
Summary: “Regina is funny, Emma finds out.Not that it is that big of a surprise, but the whole being held captive and tortured for weeks on end thing does tend to diminish someone’s sense of humor.But Regina is, despite all this, funny.And she certainly likes to make fun of Emma. Which is incredible in its own way because Regina barely speaks and Emma is left wondering how someone can mock another person so thoroughly with only some raised eyebrows and pursed lips.It’s truly a gift.”Emma and Regina are both prisoners who learn that they need each other for survival. They might fall into something along the way. It's complicated.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hey guys! This is mostly my brain putting these two ladies in a confined space for an extended period of time and seeing what happens.
> 
> Please read the warnings! There are only vague and few mentions of torture, no description whatsoever, but be warned if it might upset you. 
> 
> Disclaimer: This scenario is kept vaguely described because the goal is to focus on Emma and Regina not anything else. The region chosen is primarily based on real life probabilities. I just want to reiterate that religion is in no way associated with the situation in any negative way, or at least that is definitely not the intention.
> 
>  
> 
> Okay that was long. Hope you enjoy and let me know your thoughts please :D

 

When they first bring her into the room she almost doesn’t notice the body curled up on the corner, dirty and bloody and so bent within itself that it is as if it is trying to become one with the wall. 

 

She supposes it is.

 

As soon as the door closes though, the body unravels and before her sits a woman, eyes curious and defiant looking her up and down. 

 

Emma forgets how breathing works for a second because the woman in front of her is stunning, even in dirty rags and blood smeared and the transformation that happens before her eyes is astonishing. 

 

In one second, gone is the curled up scared ball of limbs trying to hide and instead Emma is faced with such a _presence_. The woman sits regally on the floor, legs crossed elegantly, posture impeccable and an intelligence to her eyes that cannot be overlooked.

 

“And who are you?” a husky voice asks. And sexy, that voice is definitely sexy.

 

“Emma. Swan,” she says, unable to take her eyes away from the mystery in front of her. 

 

“How did you end up here, Miss Swan?” she asks with a sort of detached curiosity, her eyes visibly analyzing everything there is to analyze about Emma. It’s unsettling.

 

“I’m a journalist,” she replies, leaving the longer explanation for later. “And you are?”

 

“Glad someone else is here to share interrogation time with me,” she says with a smirk that is anything but amused. 

 

Emma swallows loudly. “And your name?”

 

“Regina,” she concedes after a beat. “I’m an interpreter.”

 

Emma doesn’t for one moment believe that to be true.

 

*

 

Regina is a mystery, and Emma is sure she likes to keep it that way. Emma however, happens to like mysteries, so she is very intent on figuring this one out.

 

She manages to stay quiet for all of 23 minutes before curiosity wins over, aided by a huge amount of boredom.

 

“How did you end up here?”

 

“Much the same way you did, I suppose,” Regina tells her with a raised brow. 

 

“Well, I was just in the wrong place,” Emma says with a whole lot of resentment lacing her words. “I was only trying to get a story.”

 

Regina hums before saying, “As I said, much the same way.”

 

*

 

“How long have you been here?”

 

Regina huffs, annoyed. “Miss Swan. I regret to inform you that you will have plenty of time to pester me with all these pointless questions, you don’t have to waste your quota in the first hour of your arrival.”

 

“So I have a quota for questions?”

 

“Oh yes, and it’s shrinking by the minute.”

 

Emma laughs, amused, and she places herself more comfortably against the cool wall. 

 

“So how long?”

 

“96 days,” Regina says, a haunted look crossing her features before she is able to mask it.

 

Emma has nothing else to say for the rest of the day.

 

*

 

She should have known Regina was not kidding in the slightest when she said she was happy to have a break on interrogations. 

 

Simply stated, they fucking suck.

 

She is thrown back into the dimly lit room after her first an indefinite number of hours later and she is more than content to not move from the lump of amalgamated limbs she has become plastered on the dirty floor. 

 

She hears Regina approach her a few seconds after the door closes, her footsteps as hesitant as those of a wild animal approaching something unknown.

 

Emma whimpers when she feels a hand stroking the hair off her face and she is surprised to note that Regina is incredibly gentle as she lifts her head up slightly and gives Emma some water from the canteen.

 

She drinks it avidly, her throat sore from screaming for hours and murmurs a “Thank you” after she can’t take any more.

 

Regina rests her head back on the floor only to come back straight after with a folded blanket she places under Emma’s head and she begins to slowly wipe Emma’s face clean of the blood with a wet rag.

 

Regina is careful and so soft that Emma has a hard time reconciling who this woman actually is. She who kept her distance the whole day and was perfectly content to ignore Emma, sitting on opposite walls of the room, who didn’t bat an eye when they came to take Emma just as they were falling asleep.

 

This Regina wipes her face with the gentlest strokes imaginable and then goes to clean the rest of her body, before placing a blanket over her and telling her to rest.

 

She goes to sit on her side of the room and Emma lies there looking at the puzzle that is Regina until the pain in her body is too much to fight and she falls asleep.

 

*

 

Emma thanks whichever shitty gods were responsible for her growing up an orphan in foster care because she has never been so glad for her ability to just ignore flavors and eat whatever they put on her plate. 

 

She shovels down food that is almost inedible because she never knows if they will simply decide to stop feeding them, and she knows she needs to keep her strength. 

 

Regina, however, looks like she is being forced to eat rat (she _really_ hopes they are not being served rat). The disgust on her face borders on amusing but Emma watches as Regina does her best to overcome her gag reflex and cleans her whole plate.

 

There are worse things than being forced to eat crappy food and they both know it.

 

*

 

Emma learns to be thankful for the little things after spending some time in a shithole with no foreseeable way out.

 

For once, she is thankful that their captors don’t resort to torturing them every day. Instead, they keep it more once a week, taking turns with each of them. At least they each have about a week to recover before their next session.

 

It’s a nice gesture.

 

*

 

Emma learns that her most hated sound in the world is Regina’s screaming. 

 

On the days that they take Regina, sweeping in at random hours of the day and whisking her away, Emma watches as Regina transforms from the strong force of nature to a whimpering mess before her eyes.

 

As soon as the door opens her posture changes, her demeanor submissive, eyes downcast, her voice trembling. 

 

And she screams.

 

Regina screams and those screams get burned into Emma’s brain and she dreams of it most nights. Not her own screams, curious enough, but Regina’s, the woman who seldom speaks but takes the gentlest care with Emma when she’s been hurt.

 

*

 

Emma often wonders what type of a chameleon Regina is. When they bring her back and throw her on the floor, even though she had just been screaming for hours and is still whimpering in their presence, she immediately quiets.

 

Her breathing slows, her tears dry, her body back under her careful control.

 

Emma doesn’t have nearly as much skill.

 

Emma cleans her up as well and softly as she can and she knows she’s nowhere near as gentle as Regina is but Regina doesn’t complain and she doesn’t make a sound. 

 

She lies there and she lets Emma pass the wet rag through her broken skin without a hiss, her eyes closed and her face a mask of serenity.

 

Sometimes Emma wonders if Regina is meditating when she lies like that, if she locks her mind away in some remote place where there is no hurt. It certainly looks like it.

 

Emma leaves her covered and as clean as possible and Regina drifts off to sleep without saying a word because she never does.

 

*

 

Emma watches Regina sleep.

 

It would be creepy (well, perhaps it _is_ creepy), but Regina is fascinating to watch, awake or asleep, and Emma is fascinated.

 

Emma watches slowly as Regina transforms once more. She goes from Buddhist monk in meditation to restless in a slow progression. Her brows crinkle and her lips purse and she begins to thrust in distress, small whimpers leaving her lips until it culminates in her waking up with a scream.

 

Emma closes her eyes then, pretending to be asleep and Regina acts as if she believes her.

 

It’s a repeating pattern, much like Emma’s repeating nightmares, and Emma is as fascinated as she hurts.

 

*

 

Regina has this necklace with a ring on it that she keeps in a hole in the wall hidden behind a rock. 

 

She takes it out at night when she thinks Emma is asleep and she spends long moments holding it. Just that. Just Regina sitting against her wall, legs crossed as she holds on to the necklace, eyes closed in some type of trance.

 

Once again, Emma is fascinated and perhaps her creepy levels have gone up a notch. 

 

*

 

Emma wonders when exactly she started thinking about her side of the room and Regina’s side of the room. As if they’re willing roommates instead of unwilling captives forced to share the same dingy, smelly, dark, humid room god knows where.

 

She also wonders if Regina resents her for taking up half of the room which she once held full sovereignty over. 

 

It’s things like these that keep her mind going in a place that is slowly but surely trying to turn her insane.

 

*

 

Emma concludes that if one is to be captured and held captive for extended periods of time that one should not have a vagina.

 

Emma doesn’t even want to think about having to deal with her period again next month.

 

Just no.

 

*

 

She comes to the conclusion that humans have a need to make things their own, just like they have a need to categorize everything. 

 

She notes that people will occupy a certain space, even if it’s for the first time, and they will immediately set a boundary around it. If they’re standing, they have their own personal space that others are not supposed to cross. If they are sitting on a bus there is a very clear line between “my seat” and “your seat” and no one better cross it. If they are in a room they will similarly delimit their own space.

 

Emma has the right side of the room with the tiny window way too far up for her to reach and Regina has the left side with her secret hole in the wall.

 

There is the sink in the corner and the toilet next to it which they both use and equally pretend they don’t because no one should be privy to a stranger’s bowel movements. 

 

Emma supposes you can’t really consider someone a stranger once you’ve heard everything that has come out of their body, but still.

 

*

 

The rigid invisible line dividing their room becomes more fluid in the dark, Emma notices.

 

Perhaps it is the darkness that brings with it a sense of possibility, lowered inhibitions and a feeling of wanting to share secrets. 

 

Either way, Emma often finds herself moving closer to that line in the dark of night and she feels Regina responding to the pull in equal measure, although slightly more reluctantly.

 

They don’t necessarily talk much, but they sit there a few feet from each other enjoying the quiet comfort of a stranger’s company in the lonely night.

 

*

 

Emma still thinks of Regina as a stranger even after five weeks of sharing a room.

 

It’s a strange thing.

 

*

 

Emma decides one day to brave the invisible line and she slides closer to its border as she’s having lunch. In plain daylight. 

 

She might be going slightly insane after all.

 

Insane or not, she ventures towards the great unknown and unspoken barrier and manages to eat a whole (disgusting) meal there with only the slightest of narrowed eyes from her roommate. 

 

It’s riveting.

 

*

 

Emma has decided Regina is also not a roommate, although she is yet to find an appropriate denominative for her.

 

The search continues.

 

*

 

Somehow Emma’s bravery is influencing the masses. She is becoming a revolutionary in her own rights.

 

Regina, slowly but surely, starts moving closer to the border every day when they eat until one day they are both sitting side by side and eating in companionate silence.

 

*

 

Companion in captivity, perhaps.

 

Emma is not too sure she is happy with this denominative either.

 

It has a certain…resigned quality to it, and neither of them is resigned to their captivity.

 

*

 

Regina is funny, Emma finds out.

 

Not that it is that big of a surprise, but the whole being held captive and tortured for weeks on end thing does tend to diminish someone’s sense of humor.

 

But Regina is, despite all this, funny.

 

And she certainly likes to make fun of Emma. Which is incredible in its own way because Regina barely speaks and Emma is left wondering how someone can mock another person so thoroughly with only some raised eyebrows and pursed lips.

 

It’s truly a gift.

 

*

 

Emma misses modern commodities. Really, truly, deeply misses it in an almost bone-deep level.

 

Showers, for instance, are some of the things Emma misses the most. She doesn’t think she even remembers what being truly clean feels like. Washing your whole body in a shallow sink just doesn’t seem to get the same results.

 

And she really misses having a bed. She would even take some of her beds going up, stringy as those mattresses were, to sleeping in this dirty cold floor.

 

Also, food. Enough said about that topic.

 

*

 

Emma gives up on keeping track of her days in captivity when she reaches 100.

 

It feels like a milestone, one which she had hoped to never reach, so she promptly stops finding ways to drive herself crazy over that.

 

*

 

Regina keeps counting.

 

It’s just the type of person she is, Emma supposes.

 

*

 

Emma is still not entirely sure what type of person Regina is but she is slowly composing the picture.

 

*

 

Regina comes back from one interrogation session and she is not exactly okay. 

 

It takes Emma a moment to notice but the usually stoic woman is trembling slightly under her soft strokes and her face is slightly pinched, the blank mask that usually covers it is not fitting quite right.

 

Emma doesn’t really know what to do and Regina seems very adamant in pretending that everything is exactly as it always is so Emma says nothing. 

 

Emma wipes her clean and she covers her up and perhaps she lingers a little longer and strokes her hair a few more times than she normally would but that is as far as she thinks she’ll be allowed to go.

 

*

 

Regina wakes up with a scream and Emma, who hasn’t fallen asleep yet because she is watching her worriedly, looks at her and dares ask, “You okay?”

 

Regina narrows her eyes, affronted at Emma’s audacity at breaking their mutually (and silently) agreed upon stance on not mentioning anything that happens during the night.

 

Emma is slightly surprised with herself actually, but for some reason, she has found her bravery this night and she is not letting go. 

 

“Do you need something?”

 

“No,” Regina snaps, and that is the end of that.

 

*

 

It’s not really the end of that.

 

Regina falls into a fitful sleep, her distressed whimpers reaching some far hidden places of Emma’s heart and Emma has apparently still not let go of her bravery.

 

And foolhardy.

 

She gets up quietly, scoops up her blankets and dares to traverse the great barrier into the other side of the room to settle down beside Regina.

 

Emma lies down and rests shoulder to shoulder against Regina, who slowly calms down, her breaths evening out and she falls into a more peaceful (as peaceful as they get) dream.

 

Emma follows soon after.

 

*

 

They don’t speak about it.

 

Of course they don’t. 

 

Regina pretends nothing happened and Emma is not stupid enough to bring it up, and she stays on her side of the room for the whole day, even during meals.

 

She stares at the border in wonder and thinks that nighttime really does bring out bravery in people because she would never dare cross it now, not when there is a mighty creature on the other side promptly ignoring her presence.

 

*

 

Regina is thrashing again and her screams wake Emma up in a fright.

 

Emma bites her lips in thought as she ponders possible scenarios and if she’d survive each outcome.

 

She decides to risk it and treks over the great valley towards Regina, lying down next to her in silence. Regina wakes up this time and looks at her, fear clear in her eyes before she hides it away and Emma is expecting to be thrown across the room but, miraculously, she is not.

 

Regina closes her eyes and her features look instantly more relaxed and Emma feels a tiny flutter of something that shall not be named inside her.

 

*

 

The next morning Regina wakes her up by shoving her back to her side and tells her resolutely, “That will never happen again, Miss Swan,” and then completely reverts back to her usual calm and collected self for the rest of the day.

 

*

 

Emma wakes up screaming and Regina is there by her side a few moments later.

 

*

 

It becomes a thing.

 

*

 

Emma marvels at the human ability to undergo change so well.

 

One day it is “my side” and “your side”, another day, it is still “my side” and “your side” during the day, but “our side” at night.

 

Emma becomes used to sleeping next to Regina, used to her warmth, to her breathing soothing her, even used to the thrashing and kicking when the nightmares come.

 

It’s comforting.

 

Regina is comforting.

 

*

 

Emma wonders when that happened.

 

*

 

She reevaluates her pending definition of Regina but still can’t come with anything more appropriate than comforting cellmate.

 

It just doesn’t have the right ring to it.

 

*

 

Emma decides to ask about Regina’s ring in the bravery conceded to her by the dark room.

 

“What ring?” Regina asks with an Oscar-worthy performance of cluelessness.

 

Emma rolls her eyes at the predictability and taps Regina’s wrist gently, leaving her thumb there for some mysterious reason.

 

(It’s comforting and she just doesn’t know why.)

 

“The one hidden in the wall, Regina.”

 

“Oh, that one,” she drawls, as if there could be any other ring in this barren cell. “My wedding ring.”

 

“Ah,” is Emma’s only input as she becomes acutely aware of where her thumb is and removes it.

 

*

 

Regina still takes out her ring at night to hold it, only now she doesn’t wait for Emma to fall asleep because there just wouldn’t be much point in that. 

 

*

 

Emma finds that she is not so fascinated by this nightly ritual as she used to be and she avoids witnessing it at all costs.

 

*

 

Emma comes to the conclusion that she has probably, with about 79% certainty, gone slightly insane.

 

It seems like the only explanation for this weird thing that comes between her and Regina once she finds out Regina is married.

 

The insanity part coming mostly, though not exclusively, from the fact that Emma is, herself, in a loving and committed relationship and has been for the past three years. 

 

The other part of the insanity coming from the fact that she obviously ( _obviously_ ) feels nothing but slight fascination towards her reluctantly comforting cellmate (she’s still working on that definition).

 

*

 

Emma has decided that the only possible conclusion is that they have spent too much time in a closed space and they have developed some weird type of attachment towards each other, like some sort of Stockholm syndrome.

 

Granted, the attachment seems very one-sided, so perhaps not like that at all.

 

*

 

She still has to think about it.

 

*

 

Emma wonders why Regina ( _Regina_ ) opened up with some sort of personal detail before Emma did.

 

She didn’t voluntarily give out the information but she could have shut Emma down like she’s done so many times before but instead, she chose to answer Emma’s question.

 

Emma also wonders why she didn’t feel the need to share some personal information in return as would be normal in human interactions, choosing to keep quiet instead.

 

*

 

Emma concludes they are not very typical humans.

 

*

 

Emma also decides to burn down whatever this strange thing growing inside her is (it looks a lot like a certain emotion Emma thinks is jealousy but she is not sure because she has never felt it before and she also has no reason to feel anything even remotely resembling it so she decides it is not that) by sharing a relevant piece of information about herself.

 

“I have a fiancé,” she tells Regina during the day so that there may be no confusion with the bravery of the night that invites the spilling of secrets and feelings. 

 

Emma is in no mood to spill any of those.

 

Regina gives her a look and then continues looking at the ceiling, apparently something much more interesting than Emma’s love life.

 

“We’ve been together for three years,” her mouth continues to say.

 

Regina grunts in acknowledgment and says nothing in return.

 

“How long have you been married for?”

 

Regina turns her head to the side to give her a withering look and says, “Miss Swan, I have no interest in sitting here and sharing our lives as if we’re in some sort of teenage sleepover where we braid our hairs and talk about boys. Or girls”, she adds after a long look at Emma.

 

“Boy,” Emma feels the mysterious need to say.

 

Regina glares at her and turns once more to inspect the ceiling.

 

Emma holds in the need to point out this is a daytime conversation, therefore safe from any sleepover connotations.

 

*

 

Emma comes to the realization that Regina always calls her Miss Swan when she notes that she doesn’t even know Regina’s last name.

 

“You have a lot of questions, Miss Swan,” Regina says after she asks.

 

“I just get bored and you’re the only other talking organism in the room,” she replies with an innocent smile, fervently avoiding the pathway her brain wants to follow regarding their other living roommates.

 

Regina glares but says nothing.

 

Emma pouts because sometimes she finds that if she gives Regina her best puppy dog impression she will get results.

 

Sometimes. 

 

Regina has to be in a certain pliable mood.

 

Regina is not in that mood today so all Emma receives is more unimpressed glaring.

 

*

 

Emma is feeling bored again when she asks, “How come you never call me Emma? Always Miss Swan?”

 

Regina rolls her eyes as she says, “Because you already pester me too much with what little intimacy I allow you, imagine where I would be if I called you Emma.”

 

It’s the first time Regina has said her name and she says it in a way that very much becomes Emma’s favorite way of saying her name.

 

It might have something to do with the person who says it.

 

*

 

“I’ve been married for five years, together for seven,” Regina tells her seemingly out of the blue one night.

 

Emma turns to her and is momentarily speechless, the shock of Regina volunteering any information short-circuiting her system.

 

“Wow. That’s a long time.” Maybe not that long, but Regina seems young to have been married for so long. 

 

Come to think of it, she actually has no idea how old Regina is. she has one of those timeless faces so it’s kind of hard to tell.

 

Regina shrugs noncommittally and turns to the side, apparently sufficiently satisfied with the information shared. Her breathing evens out soon after and Emma is left looking at her back rising and falling in a rhythmic pattern that lulls her to sleep.

 

*

 

Emma doesn’t particularly understand how it happens but something surely shifts between them after that night.

 

She decides she likes it.

 

*

 

Emma also decides that she is very much the biggest fan of Ramadan there is.

 

She is thrilled when their food suddenly improves overnight and, though they now fast during the day and are woken up at an ungodly hour to have breakfast, she rejoices in the knowledge that she will get this wonderful food for a full moon’s cycle.

 

It’s as close to heaven as she’s gotten in a long time.

 

She would have Ramadan all year long if it were up to her.

 

*

 

Emma is vaguely aware that food is not supposed to be the best part of Ramadan but she is a woman with her priorities straight and way at the top is definitely decent food. 

 

It’s just a fact of life.

 

*

 

“If you could eat anything in the world right now what would it be?”

 

“Anything anything?”

 

“Anything. The world’s best restaurants at your service.”

 

“Cheeseburger from this little place in Brooklyn,” Regina replies instantly, her eyes twinkling with joy at the idea. 

 

Emma’s heart melts a little bit at the sight.

 

She also wishes she could give the woman her beloved cheeseburger.

 

Emma laughs at the conundrum that is Regina, a woman so poised and regal-like whose favorite food is apparently a greasy cheeseburger. Go figure.

 

“You’re American?” Emma asks curiously after a beat.

 

Regina gives her a strange look.

 

“What else would I be?”

 

Emma shrugs. “No idea. I just wasn’t sure. You do have a thing for languages and I’ve heard you speak perfect Farsi.”

 

“How would you know what perfect Farsi sounds like, Miss Swan?”

 

Emma tips her head in surrender because she doesn’t have a reply for that.

 

*

 

She notices later with the clarity of the moon that Regina didn’t actually confirm her nationality.

 

So basically, Emma is still mostly clueless about her.

 

*

 

Emma is extremely perplexed to note that, topping her love for food, is her love for a torture-free month.

 

And that is definitely her new favorite perk about Ramadan, which remains steadily her new favorite month for all reasons possible.

 

She is perhaps as equally perplexed to find something that can make her happier than food. She never thought she’d live to see the day.

 

*

 

She is a bit bummed to note how commonplace all this torture business has become in her life.

 

She feels a bit nostalgic for the days when she didn’t think a good day was any where either she or Regina weren’t being tortured.

 

Eh. Life.

 

*

 

“First thing you’re gonna do after we get out of here?”

 

“Bathe,” Regina replies instantly making Emma burst with laughter.

 

“Same,” she says with a vivid nod.

 

“Then perhaps take a shower to feel the water falling over me and then take another bath to relax.”

 

“And sleep in my own bed!” Emma groans.

 

“Definitely. 

 

“And eat. Oh my god I can’t wait to have proper food again,” she says, immediately feeling nostalgic for the end of Ramadan.

 

“And get a change of clothes,” Regina says wistfully and Emma feels the grossness of her clothes even more acutely. 

 

It just isn’t the same to hand wash them in the sink and hang them as best they can in the room while they wait around in their underwear. 

 

*

 

Emma notes she has lost all shame about being naked when she doesn’t even bat an eye at a half-naked Regina string across her half-naked self.

 

There’s something quite sad about that, she thinks. Not for herself, but a beautiful woman like Regina should always be appreciated, her nakedness should never be just another thing one gets used to.

 

Then again, Emma is engaged so there really is no reason why she would look and appreciate another woman’s body.

 

So she doesn’t.

 

(She does.)

 

*

 

“Emma,” she hears later that night as she’s about to fall asleep.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“I would hug my son. That’s the first thing I would do after getting out,” Regina says quietly and Emma is stunned silent.

 

She’s left perplexed after the infinite powers of the dark when they affect someone like Regina and not just her.

 

Emma decides to venture forth and cross the invisible barrier between their bodies to take hold of Regina’s hand and grasp it tightly.

 

Regina holds her hand just as strongly as if holding on to some invisible lifeline and they fall asleep like that.

 

*

 

Regina is back to her old stand-offish self for the next day and Emma grants her the space she needs to get herself under control.

 

She’s slightly unbalanced, Emma notices. It’s as if opening up unraveled something that she just doesn’t know how to make fit inside her anymore and there’s this unsettled energy around her. 

 

It’s barely noticeable. In fact, were Emma not so attuned to everything Regina she might have missed it because the woman is an amazing actress. 

 

But she _is_ so very attuned to Regina so she does notice and it, in turn, unsettles her because she has come to realize that her sanity is very much interlinked with Regina and her unwavering self, and this change in her mental sounding rock brings about an uneasiness she is not happy with.

 

*

 

Emma files back for later this new awareness that Regina has become intimately correlated to Emma’s mental sanity.

 

It’s a topic she is not yet able to investigate further.

 

* 

 

Regina is almost back to her usual self as they lie side by side later that night enveloped in the soothing blanket of darkness.

 

“Henry is four,” Regina whispers with only a slight tremble of her voice. “He’ll be five in sixteen days and I’ve been here for 287 days which means I’ve missed most of his fourth year of life and I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be here or how much more of his life I’m going to miss. Will he even remember me when I get back? _If_ I get back?”

 

It’s the first time Regina has been anything but sure about their future escape and it scares Emma to no end.

 

It’s also the most Emma has heard her speak in one go and that scares her in a whole other way.

 

Regina is suddenly not the Regina she is used to, not the fearless force of nature Emma counts on and she wonders what happened in the past twenty-four hours which made the world turn on its axis.

 

She’s not sure what to make of this Regina who shows her deepest fears as quietly as she breathes, who allows herself to be so vulnerable to a woman she has kept at arm's length for so long.

 

Emma is as unsettled as she is understanding. 

 

Emma also realizes that perhaps she is not the only one drawing comfort from her semi-friendly cellmate (name still going through a vetting process). She thinks maybe Regina also thinks of her as her reluctantly comforting cellmate and some sort of unusual warmth spreads through her at the thought.

 

“ _When_ you get back,” she reiterates to a wide-eyed Regina. “When you get back your son will be waiting for you and you will make up for the time lost and it will be as if this whole nightmare was just that, a bad dream.”

 

Regina takes in a deep shuddering breath and nods.

 

Emma holds her hand until Regina falls asleep and she stays awake for a long time after keeping some weird sort of vigil over her sleeping form.

 

*

 

Emma wonders if it is strange that it took Regina 190 days of sharing a room with Emma to tell her that she has a son. 

 

*

 

She concludes that it is no stranger than any of the other things about Regina, including the fact that the woman apparently thinks reciting the periodic table in every language she knows (twelve by Emma’s count) is a fun way to pass the time.

 

Regina is still a mystery but Emma is learning that she very much likes it and she very much likes the way Regina slowly unravels herself.

 

*

 

Things between them change at an infinitely smaller pace after Revelation Night, as Emma has taken to think about it. But they change nonetheless.

 

It’s a small shift, Emma’s universe turning so slowly on its axis that she has enough time to accommodate for it. It’s good in the way that she can adapt to the changes as they came, slowly but surely. 

 

She is not taken by surprise and she likes that. She likes having time to adapt, she likes having an anchor that shifts ever so slowly and gives her time to adjust. 

 

She also likes that she has settled on the idea that Regina is her anchor in this nightmarish world and the fact that _someone_ has become the way she centers herself no longer bothers her as it would have in another lifetime.

 

*

 

Emma sadly notes that she has come to divide her life into two major parts: Before this bullshit and After this bullshit.

 

Emma is very happy with that terminology and she finds it very fitting for this bullshit situation.

 

*

 

“One time I was staying with this foster family for the summer and it was seriously the worst time of my life,” Emma says dejectedly. “My stupid self decided that the girl next door was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen and I spent a whole week sending her love letters. Honest to god the sappiest and cheesiest letters anyone has ever received because fourteen-year-old me fancied herself a poet,” she winces as she remembers her embarrassing teenage self.

 

Regina laughs. A full belly laugh that has her holding her stomach and holding on to Emma’s arm for support and Emma thinks that Regina’s laugh is the most beautiful things she has ever heard and that she is perhaps still very must the sappy and cheesy teenager she used to be when it comes to beautiful women. 

 

She also thinks she is very okay with embarrassing herself in front of Regina if it gets her to laugh so freely.

 

“And did you get the girl, Shakespeare?” Regina asks with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes and a teasing smirk.

 

Emma rolls her eyes and shoves her playfully. “Obviously not. It was really bad, I could never go into poetry. That’s why it was the worst summer of my life! I had to avoid looking her in the face for a whole month, it was just the worst.”

 

“Poor baby Emma.”

 

Emma thinks playful teasing Regina is her new favorite type of Regina, so she spends the rest of the night telling her her embarrassing teenage stories. 

 

*

 

Emma decides to ignore the fact that she has started categorizing Regina according to her favorite characteristics. 

 

*

 

“I used to be the most well-behaved child, you know?” Regina tells her.

 

Emma hums her acknowledgment of hearing her but is far too comfortable feeling Regina tickle her hand to be able to utter any actual words.

 

“My mother was a nightmare and she wanted me to be perfect in everything,” she says in a tone that is only slightly resentful but an expression that reveals much more. “And I was, until I met my first boyfriend. Then there was no stopping me,” she adds with a mischievous smirk and Emma can just picture young Regina running around with her boyfriend behind her mother’s back.

 

“Who would’ve thought,” Emma teases her, “little miss perfect falling for a bad boy.”

 

Regina laughs and shakes her head. “I was never perfect and he wasn’t the bad boy.”

 

Emma gasps in mock horror. “Don’t tell me you were the bad influence on him!”

 

Regina shoves her playfully but laughs heartily. “I really was. I had two focuses in my life at sixteen: horses and Daniel. And only one of them came with the joys of sex so you can imagine which one quickly became my favorite,” she said with a devilish smirk.

 

Emma bursts out laughing, the image of a sex-crazed teenager so incongruous with her mental picture of this poised woman. 

 

“Oh god, this is absolute gold. You know you’ve forever changed the way I think about you, right?”

 

Regina’s smirk never leaves her lips. “I’m much more than what meets the eye, dear.”

 

Emma has no doubts about that.

 

Emma’s heart also does a little funny thing at the term of endearment.

 

“Is Daniel you husband?” she asks after a beat.

 

Regina’s smile immediately drops and she replies with a curt “No” as she stiffens by Emma’s side, her hand stopping her ministrations and the barrier between them immediately raised again.

 

*

 

Emma needs to learn to keep her mouth shut.

 

*

 

“Daniel died when I was in college,” Regina tells her out of the blue the following night.

 

She has this thing for making huge declarations hidden by the cover of darkness, Emma has noticed. 

 

Emma takes Regina’s hand to comfort her and the pain in Regina’s features fades a bit.

 

Emma has learned to keep her mouth shut and she doesn’t say anything else.

 

*

 

Regina is unusually quiet today and she snaps at Emma for everything and nothing and Emma is so confused that she snaps back because she has never been one to take unprovoked attacks without getting on the offensive as well.

 

By the end of the day, Regina’s nerves are so frayed that Emma wonders if she is going to physically break. She wouldn’t be surprised with the amount of tension running through her unusually diminished body.

 

Emma thinks maybe this is all finally getting to Regina and she panics at thinking she might lose the constant compass in her life.

 

She is also incredibly worried because she doesn’t know what to make of this frazzled Regina who doesn’t eat a thing the whole day and goes to sleep on her own side of the room after she very obviously puts Emma’s blankets back on her own side.

 

Emma is in a state of mild panic as she tries to fall asleep by herself for the first time in months and is miserably failing, and, judging by the constant tossing and turning from the other side of the room, so is Regina.

 

Emma is about to give up and just ask what’s wrong when Regina quietly speaks.

 

“It’s my son’s birthday today.”

 

And oh, that explains everything.

 

Emma gets up and grabs her things before making her way back to Regina.

 

Regina cries for the first time that Emma can see and she’s left trying to console the inconsolable.

 

*

 

Emma hates these people who would keep a mother away from her son and cause an unbreakable woman to completely shatter.

 

*

 

Emma feels the need to reiterate her hatred for the fucking bastards that hold them captive when they throw an unconscious Regina to the floor a few days later.

 

She has a very long list of things she plans to do to them once she can get herself out of this shithole and none of them are very nice.

 

*

 

Emma takes care of Regina the whole day, cleaning her and giving her water when she wakes up in fits, and holding her. 

 

Mostly Emma holds her as she tries to keep the pieces of her anchor in place, afraid that if she fails and even one of them is lost to the vastness of the oceans that she will also become lost in its currents.

 

*

 

Regina gets a fever and is barely able to stay conscious for more than a few minutes and Emma spends a whole two days without sleeping while she looks after her with her heart in her throat and she doesn’t think she remembers what it’s like to have a normal heart rhythm anymore. 

 

*

 

Regina is finally fever free although still incredibly weak and Emma cries for the first time since she got here because for a moment there she thought she might lose her and she still doesn’t know how to define Regina except that she’s her anchor and she can’t lose someone she hasn’t defined yet and she definitely needs to sleep because her whole body is just feeling so much that she thinks she is going insane, even with her anchor by her side.

 

*

 

Emma sleeps for long and when she wakes up Regina is still by her side even though it’s probably the middle of the day and they don’t do this. 

 

They don’t lie next to each other during the day except for when one of them is sick and Regina is not sick anymore but she _is_ lying next to Emma who is not sure what to feel or think or do.

 

She goes back to sleep.

 

*

 

When she wakes up it’s dark and Regina is still there but Emma can deal with it now because it’s dark and she’s no longer sleep deprived.

 

She’s still scared though, of so many things but mostly of losing Regina for reasons she very much cannot dwell on.

 

“It will take more than a little infection to get rid of me,” Regina tells her with a soft smile when Emma is not able to mask the fear in her eyes. 

 

She is obviously not as skilled at masking her emotions as Regina is.

 

Emma chuckles lightly because surely that is what Regina intended with her comment but it sounds anxious to her own ears and her smile is 97% forced.

 

Regina takes her hand and intertwines their fingers and that is the first time they have held hands like that.

 

“I’m really okay now, Emma,” she says softly.

 

It is also the first time she has used Emma’s name when speaking to her and it does something to her insides. 

 

Emma swallows and tries to smile again but it’s too wobbly so she gives up and she settles for nestling closer to Regina (another first) and tightening her grip on her hand.

 

*

 

“I hate them, Regina. I really, really hate them and I am not a person who hates easily at all,” she tells her angrily.

 

“I hate them too. Though I do hate easily.”

 

Emma glares at her. “This isn’t funny, Regina.”

 

“No, it most definitely is not,” Regina agrees in a tone still far too light for Emma’s liking. 

 

“You were unconscious!” Emma roars.

 

“I am aware, dear.”

 

“You had an infection!” she shouts as she paces the room in boiling anger.

 

Regina keeps her impavid façade as she says, “Again, I know.”

 

“How the fuck are you so calm about this?!” Emma yells in exasperation.

 

Regina shrugs. “It could be worse.”

 

Emma looks at her with her mouth wide open. 

 

“How the fuck could it be worse?”

 

“At least they’re not raping us,” she states simply.

 

Emma has no more words as that horror scenario sinks in.

 

*

 

Emma thinks that when you rate the level of bad by the existence or absence of sexual assault in a captive situation you’ve reached a point in life where the little things such as sleeping in a room full of crawlers don’t bother you anymore.

 

It’s all about perspective.

 

*

 

Emma gains a whole new perspective on Regina as well, reaching a deeper understanding for some of her behaviors.

 

*

 

Emma also has a feeling there might be more to Regina’s simple comparison statement but there are some things that even she will not ask.

 

*

 

Emma is now cautious with Regina in a way she has never been.

 

There’s this _thing_ between them and she is very adamant that it stay unnamed and untouched.

 

There is also her almost comical concern for Regina’s well being, which earns her constant huffs of exasperation from her partner in torture (still working on that one) and a few snapped remarks that have Emma retreating to the protection of her side of the room while Regina lets her mind go to whatever head space she goes when she meditates.

 

 *

 

Regina has been meditating a lot, Emma notices.

 

Or at least she thinks she’s meditating. Sometimes she wonders if she has developed the ability to take a nap while sitting up straight as an arrow.

 

If she has, Emma would very much like to acquire that ability.

 

*

 

She asks, and Regina laughs at her silliness and tells her that she can’t fall asleep while sitting and is, in fact, meditating.

 

Or she was trying to until Emma so rudely interrupted her. (Regina’s words, naturally.)

 

*

 

Emma decides she might as well use her very ample free time to learn some meditation. Perhaps she will even connect with Regina wherever it is that meditating minds go.

 

Regina gives her an amused smirk when she asks but agrees to teach her.

 

“Just focus on your breathing, Miss Swan, breathe deeply, in, then out, find your roots and just let yourself connect to the earth. Keep breathing and just let your mind go.”

 

Emma is perhaps concentrating a bit too hard on not letting her thoughts focus too much on that voice to try to find her roots, whatever they are. 

 

Emma was not aware she was a tree.

 

Emma is also acutely aware that, with her eyes closed, her ears seem to focus a lot more on Regina’s voice than they normally would and that might not be the best thing for avoiding the _thing_ she is vehemently avoiding.

 

*

 

Emma gives up on meditating.

 

Her mind seems to only wonder towards one thing when she’s supposed to be finding her roots and that is a whole other thing she will not dwell on.

 

*

 

“How did you meet your husband,” Emma asks one night because she thinks she might need to fill her brain with images of Regina in someone else’s arms if she is to successfully avoid thinking about what she cannot think about.

 

It’s complicated and she is perhaps a masochist.

 

(That is an interesting topic for another musing.)

 

Regina gives her a look and it seems like she will ignore Emma but then she surprises her by answering.

 

“We’ve been best friends since college. Robin was my anchor after Daniel died and we just sort of…fell in together.”

 

Emma treacherous brain notes Regina did not say fall in love and it also notes how Emma’s stupid heart reacts to that piece of information. 

 

Then Emma promptly ignores both thoughts because she will absolutely not go there.

 

Emma also wonders if it is a thing. This anchor thing and the development of these…attachments. Then she stops that train of thought as quickly as it came.

 

“How old were you?”

 

“Is this your way of trying to guess my age?” Regina asks her playfully.

 

Emma smirks. “Perhaps.”

 

“I was twenty-five if you must know,” she tells her. “It took me a long while to get over Daniel’s death.”

 

Emma squeezes her hand because she doesn’t know how else to say how sorry she is that Regina had to go through that pain.

 

“I’m thirty,” is Emma’s reply to a question that wasn’t vocalized.

 

Regina rolls her eyes but it’s fond and Emma smiles at her foolishly in return.

 

*

 

“I can’t have children,” Regina whispers in the dark of night, her usual confessional time.

 

Emma turns to her curiously, waiting, and Regina chews on her lip as she ruminates over whatever thoughts are jumping around in her head.

 

“I had some complication from surgery,” she says after a while, her free hand vaguely waving towards her lower abdomen where Emma knows there’s a scar. 

 

Her other hand is firmly in Emma’s as it has been for the past many, many nights because that is how they fall asleep now.

 

“So Henry…?”

 

“Adopted,” she says, and Emma feels a tug at her heart as she does whenever someone talks about adopting, only this time it is much more intensified because this is Regina and Regina gave a baby a chance, a home, and she loves him so much that it’s almost palpable and Emma is suddenly very lost in this woman and for one moment she doesn’t care to stop her heart from following its usual foolish trajectory.

 

“I would also like to adopt one day,” she says after a long while once she has regained enough confidence in her vocal cords’ abilities to function. “I’ve always wanted to give someone a home when they didn’t have one.”

 

Regina holds her hand oh so very tight and doesn’t say anything because she knows what this means to Emma.

 

*

 

Emma gains a new appreciation for winter in the comfort of her heated home when she has to spend cold nights with barely anything for warmth. 

 

Thankfully, and considering in this bullshit situation things to be thankful for are few and far between, winter in the Middle East is doable.

 

It’s cold, especially at night, but it’s not freezing and it’s really all about the little things when you’re in a situation full of big bad things.

 

They get thrown a few more ragged blankets when they complain about the cold for days and they are both thrilled. 

 

Happy about ragged blankets - there’s a new low Emma never thought she would reach.

 

*

 

Emma is, funnily enough, not very disturbed by the fact that the weather drops when a cold front hits them and she and Regina are forced to huddle close together during the day for warmth and to cuddle tightly at night.

 

The first moment their bodies make contact Emma is not shocked in the slightest that she feels an electrifying feeling running through her. 

 

She may be especially good at avoiding things but she is not stupid and she is definitely not blind.

 

She gives herself until the end of this cold front to be able to enjoy Regina’s body pressed against hers without guilt, without second thoughts.

 

She just wants to enjoy the feeling and her body is so starved that she shivers at any type of contact anywhere other than her hands, the only ones to have been spared this desert of affection she’s been on.

 

*

 

Emma takes a moment to appreciate Regina’s own response to their skins’ contact.

 

Her brain short-circuits a little when a sound that is very much like a contented hum comes out of the woman she has in her arms. 

 

*

 

Emma’s brain is a treacherous thing and she would wash it would bleach had she any at hand.

 

*

 

Emma loses the battle against herself when Regina pulls Emma’s arm dangerously close to her breasts as she cuddles closer for more warmth during a night that is very much spent sleepless on Emma’s part.

 

Emma also curses whoever is responsible for making her body so responsive to beautiful women who have their backs pressed so tightly against her front she can feel every curve there is to feel.

 

*

 

It is a very educational night as Emma finds that Regina’s little periodic table reciting game comes very much in handy when one is trying to control raging hormones and fantasies that have no business crossing the fantasy world to try to materialize into real-world things.

 

*

 

Side note: Emma needs to practice her Mandarin, she’s getting a little rusty. 

 

It took her way too long to properly recite that part of her list and there are certain things which are just inadmissible.

 

*

 

The cold front passes.

 

*

 

Emma is not sure how she feels about the absence of justification for night cuddling with her beautiful roommate (still not the right denominative although she might be getting closer).

 

She reserves the right to revisit her feelings on the matter at a later stage.

 

*

 

Emma takes too long thinking about her feelings about cuddling Regina.

 

*

 

Conclusion: they cuddle again for no apparent reason other than for the sake of cuddling.

 

*

 

Second conclusion: Regina is a cuddler with capital C and Emma would never have guessed it.

 

What she thought was strictly about the cold was clearly not and she is, again, not sure how she feels about her cuddle partner’s propensity for all night snuggling and holding onto body parts that are extremely sensitive.

 

(Fair enough, all of Emma’s body parts feel extremely sensitive when they come in contact with Regina’s skin.)

 

(Emma is weak and her body is weaker still.)

 

*

 

Third conclusion: daytime Regina is happy pretending nothing extraordinary happens at night and Emma is pretending she is happy to pretend that nothing is out of the ordinary.

 

(Emma’s brain is the weakest.)

 

*

 

Emma also has a fiancé whom she loves.

 

It is a thought she has to remember more frequently every day, but it is an exercise that becomes increasingly more important to maintain as the nightly cuddling progresses and it becomes as integral to her functioning as breathing.

 

 *

 

Emma revisits her attempts to define Regina when weeks go by and the woman remains acting as if nothing is out of the ordinary.

 

And perhaps that is the thing. This nightly routine of theirs has been going on for so long that it has become normal, ordinary.

 

It just is.

 

Emma is still on the fence about her feelings on the matter and she is even more rattled by Regina’s apparent lack of feelings.

 

*

 

She decides to also revise her own personal sanity.

 

*

 

She concludes that she will possibly never understand Regina as the woman remains an enigma, her actions motivated by something beyond Emma’s comprehension. 

 

*

 

She’s still pending judgment on her sanity but she thinks it is very thinly hanging in the balance and the reason is Regina, as is the direction it is swaying to on either side of the fence.

 

*

 

Emma is busy trying to practice her rusty Mandarin when she hears shouting outside quickly followed by their door banging open and two of their captors barging in the room yelling at them to get up and grab their blankets to leave.

 

Emma makes herself as much of a nuisance as she can and she motions to Regina’s secret hole in the wall hoping she’ll be quick enough on her feet to get the meaning and use Emma’s distraction to her advantage. 

 

It all goes by in a flash and Emma is lying flat on the floor in an instant, her cheek cut open from a hit with the back of a sniper rifle and she grumbles and acts compliant as she grabs her things and Regina’s and she really hopes Regina made good use of her injury.

 

Regina is back to her usual meek persona now that they have company and Emma is once again fascinated, almost unable to tear her eyes away from her as they are dragged and shoved around through corridors and into the back of a car.

 

She is glad they seem to be in too much of a rush to blindfold them as they had done when they had brought her in all those months ago.

 

For the first time in what feels like an eternity, Emma sees something other than four walls around her and she is breathless.

 

She takes in the blue sky and the shining sun and absorbs the chill in the air like it is the most welcome feeling ever because, at this moment, it is. 

 

She takes a moment to glance a look at Regina who has the same look on her face. They’re both just taking it all in.

 

She isn’t even that phased when she’s shoved into the car and they drive away to some unknown place because she can still see the world through the windows.

 

She takes Regina’s hand in hers and for a moment she is as peaceful as she’s ever been.

 

It really is the little things.

 


	2. Chapter 2

They take them to a house much the same as the one they’d been staying in a few hours ride from where they were.

 

They both get shoved into another dingy, dark, and smelly room and Emma is once again fascinated by the human brain.

 

For once, she is slightly concerned that she feels much better in this room than she had on the journey.

 

She feels instantly safer because that is what she has come to associate with a closed room hidden away from their captors with just Regina for company. (And creepy crawly creatures she no longer finds so disgusting.)

 

In the other room, the interrogation room, Emma feels fear, but in their little cell, she feels safe.

 

The human brain is a funny thing indeed.

 

Also, she will definitely need a lot of therapy when she finally gets out.

 

*

 

Another thing she notices is that they go back to placing things on different sides of the room.

 

(And by things she means their blankets which is all they have, but it’s their personal treasure in the shithole.)

 

It’s like there is a new barrier in the room, "my space”, “your space”, only this time the line is inherently more fluid.

 

And that is another thing Emma takes comfort in because it is so familiar and human brains are designed to find comfort in the familiar.

 

*

 

Regina has also become familiar, more so even than the comfort of their cell and the delimitation of their boundaries and their uninvited pets and her own reflection in the mirror.

 

(She dreads to think about what she looks like after months without a shower and with weekly torture sessions.)

 

Emma is still not sure she understands Regina very well but she can now say with absolute certainty that she is no longer a stranger.

 

It’s a good feeling.

 

*

 

“You were very quick to react,” Regina tells her evenly as she sits down on her new side of the room.

 

Emma hears warning bells, all the same, something about her piercing look, and she wonders what she did.

 

She shrugs and smiles and doesn’t reply because she is not stupid enough to show her hand when she would gain so much more from forcing her opponent’s.

 

“You sure understood what they were saying well enough for someone that doesn’t speak Farsi,” Regina says in the same even tone and the same unsettling piercing eyes and Emma’s heart does a little jump and her brain races to remember.

 

“I picked up a few things after all these months,” Emma tells her simply.

 

“You’re a quick study, Miss Swan.”

 

“Don’t sound so surprised Regina.”

 

“Not at all. Merely observant.”

 

Emma smiles and Regina smirks back and closes her eyes as she prepares to meditate. 

 

Emma takes a deep breath and focuses on commanding her own heart to regain its proper physiology.

 

*

 

Emma files away the need to revisit her meditation skills as a relatively important goal to achieve.

 

*

 

“Thank you for my necklace,” Regina whispers as she’s curled up against Emma and Emma pretends she doesn’t hear the emotion in her voice and simply holds her tighter.

 

*

 

Human beings and their habits are indeed a curious thing.

 

New room, same sleeping habits.

 

Same sleeping habits, no more guilt about it.

 

Perhaps the solution had been a change of environment all along, she ponders.

 

*

 

Regina continues her marking of the passing of time.

 

Emma has still not picked it up after she reached 100 and she has no intention to do so.

 

All she knows is that a year has come and gone since Regina has been held captive and that is a depressing day for the both of them.

 

*

 

They mutually agree that depressing days warrant round the clock cuddling.

 

Emma is perfectly non-conflicted about this arrangement and Regina seems just as happy.

 

*

 

Regina is nothing if not determined and ingenious and she digs up another hidden place for her treasure.

 

*

 

Emma wishes she could stop her brain from being so damn observant in every situation, even when it is completely the opposite of beneficial for her sanity.

 

For instance, Emma would like it very much if her brain had not decided to notice how much less frequently Regina takes out her ring form its new hole and sits there in her corner with it.

 

It is information she has no use for and doesn’t know what to do with, but she has it.

 

It is also information that circles around in her head as she tries to make sense of it and squeeze it for any type of logic she can get out of it.

 

So there’s that.

 

*

 

Emma is always fascinated to learn new things about Regina, who still remains her favorite mystery to unravel even after all these months.

 

Now she learns that Regina is a huge fan of Christmas and she gets the biggest grin on her face as she listens to stories of last minute Christmas shopping and baking and happy children and just a whole lot of happiness and family that Emma has never really experienced but she longs for it now with renewed fervor and allows herself the one fantasy, hidden beneath the cover of the late night, of her with a very familiar brunette, both smiling at each other around a table full of delicious food and so much happiness her heart doesn’t really know how to properly complete the picture.

 

*

 

Regina officially becomes Emma’s favorite person when she wakes Emma up on a day that she insists is Christmas (all Emma knows is that it’s winter, but Regina knows her shit) and gives her a rag ball.

 

Emma looks at it bewildered for a sleepy-eyed moment and then goofily smiles at Regina’s silliness, feeling a renewed fondness for her trusted anchor.

 

“Thank you, Regina, these are my favorite rags.”

 

Regina rolls her eyes and laughs lightly. “Open it, you idiot!” 

 

Emma gets confused because she honestly thought it was all about the gesture but she unwraps the ball with exaggerated caution (partly because she doesn’t entirely put it past Regina to have put some sort of animal in there).

 

When she finally gets it open she is left speechless and she looks at Regina with wide wonder-filled eyes.

 

“You like it?” Regina asks with a nervousness that is so completely rare on her that Emma is left even more stunned.

 

“It’s beautiful,” she manages because of course it is.

 

Because for some reason Regina took the ring out of her necklace and wrapped the chain in a ball of dirty rags and gave it to Emma.

 

“But it’s yours, Regina,” she says over the ball of emotion stuck in her throat.

 

Regina gives her a small smile that is so honest and vulnerable it leaves Emma’s lungs momentarily incapacitated.

 

“It’s Christmas and I want you to have it,” she says in an attempt to not make too big a deal out of something that most assuredly is.

 

Emma nods because she will not deny either of them this and she gives Regina a hug that goes on for too long.

 

It is their first hug though, she notes, so they are allowed to make up for lost time.

 

“I didn’t get you anything,” Emma says with a shy smile because obviously, she didn’t. She doesn’t exactly have anything to give.

 

“You give me plenty,” Regina tells her with a look on her face that Emma is loath to try to interpret.

 

So perhaps Emma has to revisit her idea of not having anything to give and Regina’s idea of her giving plenty at a later moment. One where she is not too busy trying not to get overwhelmed by her emotions.

 

*

 

She is not surprised that New Year's Eve is a depressing day with capital D and she is even less surprised that New Year's Day is even more so.

 

The only consolation is that they seek each other continuously throughout the day and that daytime cuddles are part of the feel-better kit.

 

*

 

Some days daytime cuddles have more effect than other days, Emma comes to note.

 

*

 

Somehow, daytime cuddles also become a thing.

 

Emma is sure how she feels about this one and but is not sure how she feels about how she feels about it.

 

Emma has to revisit her insanity levels. It’s just one of those things that have to be routinely checked.

 

*

 

She concludes she may have gone 13% insane and she is surprisingly okay with those numbers.

 

*

 

She finds herself observing as if she were a third party her interactions with her beautiful cell companion (not quite there yet on the categorization but she’s narrowed down the first adjective with unopposed opinions).

 

She notes, with only a mild amount of fear, how much Regina has changed since the first day Emma was thrown through the door. The other door, not this one.

 

The woman meditating opposite her is still uniquely fascinating, perhaps even more so than she used to be, and she is still as equally mysterious.

 

Emma ponders how it is possible to know so many little details about someone after living in confined quarters for almost a year and still be surprised with things she says or does. 

 

She decides she likes to be continuously surprised by Regina.

 

She also decides she is very much a fan of this Regina who smiles at her fondly, rolls her eyes in amused exasperation,  laughs genuinely and whispers secrets in the dark of the night. 

 

She is also a big fan of the Regina who still teases her to no end,  who is surprisingly funny, who is quiet and introspective, who still doesn’t say that much but what she says often compensates for all the hours of silence.

 

*

 

She should probably just conclude that she is a big fan of Regina, period, but she did just recently classify her as her new favorite person so she thinks that that point is a little obvious.

 

*

 

Emma is thankful to the gods of unwilling captives that their captors have changed with the change in location and that these new ones are much less inclined to keep their interrogations on a weekly schedule.

 

Granted, there’s something slightly unsettling about never knowing when to expect it, if it will come in three days or three weeks, but it is still a reprieve for her body and mind.

 

It’s exhausting to hold up any sense of sanity under such prolonged torture.

 

*

 

Also, Emma has added to the list of things she needs to work out with her future therapist the fact that she found some sort of comfort in her weekly torture routine.

 

Humans and their affinity for routines might be her undoing.

 

*

 

Emma is extremely distressed to realize, one night, that it has been days since she’s reminded herself that she has a fiancé whom she loves and the same amount of days since she’s thought about him.

 

She is even more distressed to find out that she is not actually as troubled or as surprised by that realization as she should be.

 

*

 

Emma doesn’t sleep that night because Regina is still a cuddler with capital C and Emma can barely breathe with the guilt that comes over her and that only intensifies as she continues to enjoy Regina’s warm body pressed against her.

 

And the curves. Why did she have to have so many of them and so proportionate to her body?

 

*

 

She should probably not think about Regina’s curves when faced with guilt about forgetting about her fiancé and about enjoying said curves a bit too much.

 

*

 

Sometime before dawn Emma has officially reclassified her insanity levels which have reached a slightly worrisome 21%.

 

*

 

Emma spends the next day as far away from Regina as their small room allows and she avoids thinking about the hurt and confused looks Regina sends her all the way from the other wall.

 

*

 

Emma decides it’s time to freshen up her Arabic this time.

 

It feels like a good way to pass the time without having to think about things she cannot think about and she goes at it for the whole day, her brain so filled with languages she almost doesn’t know which one she’s using anymore.

 

She also miserably fails in her attempt to not think about what she should not because the subject of said thoughts is literally across the room and Emma is forced to rethink her categorization of humans.

 

She concludes (in Arabic because she is nothing if not stubbornly determined), that humans are like magnets and that when they come into contact with one another they either repel or attract.

 

And Regina… Regina is undoubtedly a magnet she is very much attracted to in every sense of the world, wherein lies her biggest problem.

 

(Were she still her fourteen-year-old aspiring poet self, Emma would have gone so far as to venture that perhaps Regina is the center of the earth itself and Emma has no choice but to fall to her in a gravitational way.) 

 

(It would perhaps be accurate but that crosses a boundary that Emma is unwilling to go over.)

 

*

 

Regina says nothing when Emma sleeps in her own side of the room and Emma makes no move to change their sleeping arrangements even after she notices Regina shivering with cold.

 

*

 

Emma knows she is already going to hell or whatever version of it there is so she is okay with the fact that she is letting Regina spend a restless night if it means that Emma gets to maintain the illusion of restraint.

 

*

 

Emma stubbornly and silently remains on her own side for more than a week and Regina says less and less every day.

 

*

 

Emma notes with only slight interest how the border that was so fluid when they claimed their new spaces in their room is now as thick an unwavering as a concrete wall. 

 

It has become a full presence in its own right, a third cellmate almost, and sometimes Emma finds herself wishing the boundary was the magnetic field she was attracted to and not Regina because _that_ she could deal with.

 

 _This,_ she is clearly doing a terribly poor job at.

 

*

 

Emma still has nightmares of course.

 

And she still dreams of Regina and her screams which mostly means that not only is she haunted by Regina every second of every day, there is just no way in her mind for her to escape for one moment and find some reprieve from the thing she is trying to run away from while locked up in a small room.

 

It also means that she has utterly failed at whatever attempt that she was trying to succeed at by forcing some space between herself and Regina.

 

*

 

Emma screams when she wakes up from her nightmares and Regina wakes up, or perhaps she was never asleep, and she looks at Emma from across the room with so much longing and vulnerability and conflict that Emma is forced to turn around and face the wall and try to have a dreamless night.

 

She fails, of course, and Regina’s screams still permeate every space of her unconscious.

 

*

 

Regina’s façade cracks completely at night these days, Emma notes.

 

During the day she has regained her composed and indifferent mask, every since the first night they slept apart, and Emma feels a pang in her chest at the resemblance between this Regina and stranger-Regina which she had long ago seized to be.

 

In the dim light that filters through their only window (she is curious about these cells' architects and their affinity for single small windows) Regina not once shows she is anything but utterly unperturbed by Emma’s distance.

 

She barely speaks to Emma, barely looks at her and her face remains a perfect mask of neutrality.

 

Emma wonders if she should focus on the fact that Regina barely speaking or looking at her is her way of showing she is hurt, that her pretending she is unaffected shows perhaps exactly just how affected she is.

 

Emma refuses to follow through with those musings.

 

She does notice that nighttime Regina is diametrically opposed to daytime Regina.

 

Nigh time Regina shows her emotions as clear as day on her beautiful features and Emma has to find interesting things on the ceiling to focus on rather than a face that is slowly trying to make her lose her mind.

 

Nigh time Regina looks at Emma as if _Emma_ is the wonder and as if she just cannot comprehend what happened. She looks open and vulnerable and, above all else, hurt. She looks really fucking hurt and Emma doesn’t know what to do with the effect those emotions have on her.

 

 *

 

Emma thinks that, much like the darkness brings out the bravery in her, it brings out the vulnerability in Regina, the freedom to show her true emotions under the guise of the dark.

 

*

 

Emma’s relationship with the dark has changed and she is no longer sure she appreciates it nearly as much, not when she is faced with horrors of her own doing.

 

*

 

Emma is shivering and she can’t get warm no matter how much she curls up in a ball and her teeth are starting to shatter and she doesn’t know what to do to find some warmth apart from what she really cannot do no matter how much she wishes she could.

 

*

 

Emma hears whimpers and she thinks that they are coming from her but she cannot be sure.

 

She uses the blanket of darkness to pretend they could be coming from any of the two human inhabitants of the room.

 

*

 

Emma’s mind is playing tricks on her and she is starting to see things that are clearly not there (so not all is lost for her grasp on sanity if she is aware of her own hallucinations) when she sees flashes of Killian in the breaking dawn.

 

*

 

Emma’s shivering has become unbearable and she falls in and out of distressing dreams where Regina’s screams drive her mad as Emma tries to protect her and she fails every time and there is a too loud clacking noise when she is semi-awake and she just wishes she could will it all away with the power of her mind but, unfortunately, she is not a Jedi and her mind is clearly playing tricks on her.

 

*

 

Emma finally feels warm and she sleeps semi restfully and she thinks there is something very warm surrounding her body and wrapping itself around her heart but she is not very sure.

 

*

 

Emma feels a cool cloth on her forehead and she opens her eyes after what feels like an eternity to find Regina sitting up next to her, back leaning against the wall and head hanging down with her eyes closed.

 

She thinks she is still hallucinating and decides to sleep it off.

 

*

 

Turns out it was not a hallucination because she opens her eyes again and everything is the same minus the wet cloth on her forehead.

 

Regina seems to sense she is awake and snaps her eyes open and Emma is not sure she can deal with what she sees so she closes her own because she is possibly a coward.

 

*

 

Emma is awake again and she feels much better than she did just hours before and she moves her head around hoping the water will be close by because she still has no energy to move.

 

It isn’t, but Regina seems to read her mind and she gets up from her sitting position and fetches Emma the water, helping her lean her head up a bit so she is able to drink.

 

Emma doesn’t think she can handle Regina being this soft to her.

 

“Thank you.”

 

Regina says nothing in return, just gets up once more and returns with something that is supposed to be food and must be very cold by now. Emma’s stomach turns because the food is already bad when it’s warm but it’s almost impossible to swallow cold.

 

Regina shoves the plate in her direction anyway and orders, “Eat.”

 

So Emma does.

 

*

 

She was right. It is absolutely disgusting but she finishes the whole thing under Regina’s murderous glare.

 

*

 

It’s night again and Regina lies down next to her without saying a word, wrapping the blankets closely around them both before turning to face the wall.

 

Emma finds that she falls asleep easier than she has in the last couple weeks and she should probably be more concerned about that than she is.

 

*

 

“You got sick,” Regina says evenly as she stares at the ceiling, still lying next to Emma in the early hours of the morning.

 

Emma’s not sure what she’s supposed to say to that.

 

She settles for a confused, “Sorry?”

 

Regina turns her head ever so slightly to face her with the mightiest of glares.

 

“You got sick because you are an idiot who decided it would be a good idea to sleep on your own in the middle of winter for 13 days straight.”

 

Emma is not sure what she should be more impressed with. If the fact that Regina counted the exact number of days since Emma’s failed distancing or if the fact that she has the uncanny ability to yell at her without actually raising her voice.

 

Emma decides she should act appropriately shamed to avoid any further non-yelling yelling.

 

Emma also is clearly not the best of actresses because her shamed-face fails in its attempt to soothe the mythical creature.

 

“Are you even going to try to give an explanation for such idiocy, Miss Swan? Or are you choosing the coward’s way out?”

 

The coward’s way, 100%. 

 

(It is daytime after all and her bravery is reserved for the night.)

 

That is until she lifts up her eyes to see unshed tears in Regina’s eyes and then she doesn’t even care for her attempt at keeping some sort of distance from this woman who has taken her heart captive. (She might have to come up with a better metaphor for that, she thinks it’s probably too soon for that play on words.)

 

Emma finds some courage deep down in her once brave self.

 

“I needed a bit of space.”

 

“From what?” Regina asks, completely clueless. 

 

“You.”

 

Some form of understanding comes over her eyes and Regina gets up and doesn’t say another word for the whole day.

 

*

 

They sleep next to each other at night. 

 

It seems they have mutually (and silently, once again) agreed that for the sake of their health they will share body warmth but as soon as they wake up they inhabit different spaces.

 

*

 

Emma is not happy with that arrangement.

 

*

 

Emma is also not happy with how unhappy she seems to be.

 

*

 

She concludes her happiness can be overlooked when she has the very important task of getting her head, and heart, back to where they belong.

 

It’s hard work and Emma is kept busy for days on end.

 

It’s not enough hard work that she still doesn’t notice Regina with an attention that would rival an entire colony of bees before a field full of nectar.

 

*

 

Emma comes to another very important conclusion after a month goes by with their new arrangement.

 

Emma is, utterly, completely, and irrevocably, fucked.

 

*

 

She failed in her endeavor and her loving, committed relationship has taken a secondary place to her non-existent relationship with her beautiful anger-filled cellmate (not quite there yet but the adjectives seem especially apt as of late).

 

She decides to give up for the moment and simply try to clear her thoughts of anything remotely guilt-inducing.

 

*

 

Emma decides this is the time to revisit her intent to improve at meditation. And by improve, she obviously means learn how to do something from zero because she still has no idea.

 

*

 

Emma fails at meditation.

 

*

 

Emma keeps trying to meditate because she notices that her fumbling and huffing and groaning evoke reactions out of Regina.

 

Regina’s first reactions are annoyance and anger and she snaps at Emma often.

 

Emma persists because any reaction is a good thing for a starving woman.

 

Eventually, the anger dissipates and the annoyance is transmitted by fondly exasperated eye rolls instead of huffed out curses.

 

Later still, Emma even manages to get a few small smiles for the first time in way too long and Emma is exhilarated, vibrating as she hasn’t been for a really long time.

 

*

 

Emma decides she likes her non-meditation after all and she sticks to it.

 

*

 

Emma finds her bravery once again and she restarts the process of approximation because she has given up on trying to avoid the unavoidable.

 

Slowly, she shifts in the room until one day she has transversed the border and she finds herself having lunch next to Regina in Regina’s side of the room.

 

Emma rewards herself with one guilt-free day after that conquest and she allows all thoughts Regina to flood her mind without holding back.

 

It’s the small victories.

 

*

 

Regina starts talking to her again and when Emma gets a whole full sentence without any snappy remarks she rewards herself again by allowing her hand to slip so close to Regina’s during the night that it is almost touching. Almost.

 

They still don’t touch, though. That barrier was redoubled after Emma’s antics.

 

*

 

When Emma gets a full grin out of Regina she dares to cross the boundary and touch her hand in the dark.

 

Not holding. That would require another victory.

 

*

 

She holds her hand when she gets Regina to laugh again and Regina holds hers extra tight and Emma feels right again.

 

Emma also really missed Regina’s laugh. She had been filled with only the sound of her screaming for so long that she had almost forgotten that this beautiful woman could produce both the most horrifying and most enchanting of sounds.

 

*

 

Emma vows to make Regina laugh every day to make up for the weeks of absence.

 

*

 

Emma decides to challenge Regina to try out her work out routine because she knows Regina will not back out of a challenge.

 

“Miss Swan, you’ve seen me train, why would I need to follow your training?”

 

“Because yours is weak,” Emma tells her with a teasing smirk.

 

Regina gasps in offense and Emma is rewarded with the sight of Regina attempting to do double the amount of exercise she usually does.

 

Emma decides she very much likes the sight of a slightly glistening and out of breath Regina and she also is a big fan of watching those muscles work for a longer period of time, which was the main goal really.

 

*

 

Regina decides she will murder Emma after only one day if they are ever left without food as payback, and Emma laughs for a full ten minutes because the sight of Regina grunting in pain at her sore muscles is the most amusing thing that has happened within their four walls in a while.

 

She is also proud of herself for knowing her beautiful sociopathic cellmate (still doesn’t have the right ring to it) so well that she knew exactly how to bait her.

 

*

 

As a side note, Emma takes Regina’s threat very seriously because she doesn’t doubt for one moment that the woman could easily kill her.

 

*

 

Emma is vehemently regretting her life choices when a wincing Regina describes every way she will slowly and torturously kill Emma for her little prank.

 

Emma also is praying (and she really doesn’t pray so it goes to show how serious she is) that their captors are not outside their door listening to them because the last thing she needs if for them to be getting any ideas from Regina’s scarily creative mind and applying it to real-world situations.

 

(At least she _thinks_ Regina’s torture scenarios have never left her mind. At this point, Emma is not sure of anything about the woman anymore.)

 

*

 

Emma’s reward for some nonsense or other (she’s given up trying to make it out of real, important things) is to cuddle Regina again. 

 

She lets her brain contentedly absorb just how relaxed Regina looks in her arms, how surprised she is at first when Emma puts her arm around Regina’s slender waist as they’re lying down in the dark and just how absolutely beautiful she looks when a small peaceful smile breaks through her lips. 

 

Emma comes to the conclusion she was an absolute idiot for ever wanting to let this feeling go.

 

*

 

Emma cuddles Regina and she herself becomes a cuddler with a capital C and she has no qualms about it whatsoever.

 

*

 

Emma has her first dream-free night.

 

*

 

Regina is nervous in the way she gets when she is about to spill some deep secret in the dark of night.

 

Emma holds her tighter and waits because that is all Regina usually needs from her.

 

“Sometimes I feel like this is a dream, Emma.”

 

She sounds very vulnerable in her whispering and Emma is at once simultaneously on edge and warm about her usage of Emma’s first name.

 

“It feels so surreal, so completely detached to what my reality used to be that I wake up wondering sometimes if I’ve finally woken up from it.”

 

Emma hums and waits and she tightens her hold and feels Regina nervously playing with Emma’s fingers as she digests her thoughts.

 

“Can we pretend this is just a dream, Emma?” she asks as she turns to look at Emma, her face as vulnerable as Emma has ever seen it and open, so very open that Emma is overwhelmed by the emotions she can see. “Us? Can it be part of the dream?”

 

So Emma leans in and gently kisses her because yes, _this_ she can do. 

 

She can have nightmares at night with her eyes closed and this beautiful dream with her eyes open and filled with so much Regina that it overflows from her pores. 

 

This she can allow herself to have, guilt-free, full in, because a dream is a dream and when they wake up things will be different, but at least they get to live this dream and enjoy it and Emma _really_ needs to have good dreams again and she thinks Regina does too.

 

*

 

Their kiss is so soft and gentle and slow and loving (yes, she can finally name the unnamable because it’s allowed to exist in the dream world) and Emma feels so much that she has to stop it from overtaking her entirely lest she detaches herself from her anchor and starts drifting off in the currents.

 

Emma takes a breath and her lips involuntarily smile brilliantly and when she opens her eyes to look at Regina she finds everything, and she finds herself wanting to absorb all of that everything into her own being.

 

*

 

Emma decides that she is okay after all with getting lost in the currents if it means Regina is the one leading her adrift and bringing her back.

 

*

 

It’s easy.

 

It’s so, _so_ easy to fall into Regina that Emma just lets go.

 

It’s easy in a way that comes as no surprise at all and Emma is in awe of how naturally they come together, how seamlessly they transition from one thing to the other and just how well they connect. 

 

Emma is undone as swiftly as she’s never been and she loses herself in Regina with no thought. She just gives and gives and fully gives in and Regina does the same and they bring out gasps from each other that are as much of shock as they are of pleasure. Emma feels so much, every inch of her has developed a hundred times more nerve endings and her heart is the center of all those feelings and it knows no other word but Regina.

 

*

 

They hold each other tight when they calm down, breaths working hard to even out and Emma is absolutely content for what feels like an infinite minute that stretches on and on. 

 

Then she feels tears falling against her skin and she holds Regina closer to her because she knows. She knows what it’s like to feel so completed by someone when there is another someone else waiting in another world.

 

Emma tries her best not to let those two worlds crash though. There is this wonderful dream that she shares with Regina and there is the other reality in which she does not. 

 

So she lets Regina cry with as much comfort as she can offer and she tries not to let herself get too affected by the hurting woman in her arms.

 

*

 

Regina settles and she smiles and she caresses and she _loves_ and Emma is finally at peace.

 

*

 

Emma is happy to call a cease-fire in the war that was going on in her heart and her head for almost a year.

 

Emma is also happy that she is happy about it.

 

She is even happier that she has finally put her conflicting thoughts and feelings to rest.

 

*

 

Regina is beautiful and breathless and Emma is always awestruck by her now because she can finally see and feel everything there is to feel.

 

Regina’s smiles fill Emma’s heart with layers and layers until there is an overflow of feelings and Emma feels so, _so_ full.

 

*

 

Emma has a constant smile on her lips these days and the cause is very clear.

 

*

 

Regina has a similar smile constantly gracing her face.

 

*

 

Regina still decides it’s fair game to make fun of Emma for her lovestruck look. (Regina’s words, but Emma has no objection to that qualifier.)

 

Emma shrugs and accepts it and doubles said lovestruck looks if such a thing is even possible.

 

*

 

Emma decides she is okay after all with being weak, and she very much likes being weak with Regina.

 

She is equally as okay with the kind of thoughts running rampant in her filthy brain because she now has permission to look _and_ touch freely and she is not holding back.

 

*

 

She thinks Regina quite appreciates just how much Emma is okay with putting her impure thoughts into practice.

 

*

 

Emma concludes that laughter is not necessarily her favorite sound that comes out of Regina’s mouth.

 

She has developed a library-worthy collection of sounds produced by Regina and she keeps them stored in her mind like the treasure they are.

 

*

 

Emma muses she is not so poor of things to give Regina after all.

 

She doesn’t have anything to her name in this godforsaken room but she has herself and now she fully understands Regina when she said “You give me plenty” because Regina also gives her plenty.

 

Emma is also not so poor of things to keep. She now has memory upon memory of amazing things stored up in her own personal vault.

 

*

 

Regina is ticklish, Emma finds out.

 

Regina will squeal like a little girl when Emma tickles her and the laughter fills Emma’s ears.

 

Naturally, tickling Regina becomes one of her favorite things because Emma is still having trouble forming a complete picture of her beautiful lover (Emma is very happy with these adjectives) and reconciling the different and, often opposite, sides of her and she likes to come up with ways to unravel her.

 

She delights in the fact that this woman who can withstand pain so well is completely in hysterics when facing off a few ticklish fingers.

 

Just one of life’s mysteries, Emma supposes.

 

*

 

“Do you know what I miss?” a sleepy Regina asks while they lie in each other's arms, bodies still burning with pleasure.

 

“What?”

 

“Music.”

 

Emma whips her head around because yes, she misses music too and she doesn’t know how it never crossed her mind that Regina might enjoy music when she’s sure that 99,9% of the world’s population does, but the truth is, it never did.

 

And here Emma has been singing to herself all this time when she could have been singing to Regina.

 

So she does. Because Emma is a big romantic sap at heart.

 

She starts singing softly one of her favorite songs and she sees Regina smiling up at her in surprise and closing her eyes and she enjoys it and Emma has a whole new favorite type of Regina to add to her list of favorite versions of Regina.

 

*

 

At the moment the list is as follows:

 

Teasing-Regina

Laughing-Regina 

Enjoying music-Regina

Peaceful post-orgasm-Regina

Silly playful-Regina

Loving-Regina

Sex-hungry-Regina

 

*

 

Emma has to note that her list is completely out of order and, in fact, there will probably never be order to it and she will just keep adding favorites because she really only has one favorite and that is _her_ Regina.

 

*

 

“Dream destination?”

 

“Antartica.”

 

“Of course it is,” Emma teases and Regina shoves her harder than strictly necessary.

 

“Yours?”

 

“At the moment anywhere that doesn’t have four walls seems like paradise,” she says and Regina hums her agreement. “But Iceland.”

 

“Volcanos and Northern lights?”

 

“I’d go there in an instant, regardless of any current major volcanic activity.”

 

Regina laughs at her morbid humor because that is just who she is.

 

“Favorite place you’ve been too?”

 

“Mongolia. You?”

 

“Work or leisure?”

 

“God woman, can’t you just answer a question directly for once?” Emma groans and Regina simply raises a brow and waits for Emma to redefine her search query because of course she does. “What’s the difference anyway?”

 

“If I’m working I don’t really have time to see anything.”

 

Emma decides not to comment on that because she is sure an interpreter gets to see plenty, but then again, she knows that’s not even close to what Regina does.

 

“Fine. Leisure then.”

 

“Quirimbas.”

 

“Is it me or do you have a thing for remote places?”

 

Regina lifts an amused brow at her. “So do you.”

 

Emma nods firmly because yes, if she is on holiday she doesn’t want to have to deal with people, not after what she handles during the rest of the year.

 

“People are exhausting sometimes.”

 

“Yes.”

 

*

 

“Do you want more children?” Emma asks her and she is surprised to realize that she is not asking out of some type of masochism but because she is genuinely curious to know everything there is to know about Regina.

 

“Yes. Robin and I were planning on adopting again once Henry was in kindergarten,” she says with a small smile.

 

Emma is pleased to note that she doesn’t feel jealous, not anymore. (Which means she is forced to admit that she was, in fact, jealous before.)

 

She’s not sure what to make of how well she has delimitated their world but the truth is, she has. There is the word within these four walls and then there is the outside world and in here she has Regina and outside they have other people and that is, oddly, okay.

 

It is also okay that Regina is happy in her marriage and that she has someone who loves her and is waiting for her to return just as Emma does. 

 

So, surprisingly, she smiles when she pictures a faceless man with a faceless kid and a hypothetical faceless baby with Regina, living and loving and being, and she is happy with that picture. She is happy for Regina.

 

“Do you still want to adopt?”

 

“I would like to, but I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a mom. I didn’t exactly have the best role models.”

 

“I think you would be great if you ever decide that’s you want.”

 

Emma smiles in thanks and thinks that she might, one day. 

 

Everything kind of depends on when they leave this place. 

 

*

 

Emma is having a not so good day when it finally clicks that the rest of the world keeps turning and turning and they are just so _stuck_. 

 

They remain in their four-walled room with their tiny window and their crappy food and they are almost stagnant when the rest of the world just keeps going on.

 

People are living and dying and making new life again and Emma and Regina are preserved in this timeless capsule where they are unaware and seemingly unaffected by the changing world around them. 

 

Whole countries could have been made and destroyed in the time they have been here and they would be none the wiser because they are isolated. Alone. 

 

Completely alone in their dream world that fits only two people.

 

*

 

Emma develops mixed feelings about their dream world.

 

*

 

Emma doesn’t know what to make of this new awareness of being just so small in the face of everything. Most of all, of being so insignificant.

 

That is, perhaps, what bothers her the most.

 

Growing up she often felt insignificant, just another mouth to feed, just another meal-check. She worked hard to feel like she made a difference, impacted the world in some way. 

 

Emma is not the type of person who needs to make big heroic stances to leave her mark in the world but she is also very capable of doing those things and she hasn’t done nearly enough of them.

 

What crushes her is that, despite all that, despite all her hard work, the world is still turning without her help. Everything functions like a well-geared machine and when one piece is broken (or disappears, in her case) it is simply replaced because the machine must keep working. And it does. It works and works and the broken and lost pieces are left behind and become obsolete.

 

She cannot comprehend how everything is still functioning and she has become lost to the world.

 

*

 

She thought Regina was doing a good job of anchoring her but perhaps her abilities are only limited to the dream world. 

 

She doesn’t know.

 

*

 

If Emma were to disappear from the world forever she is sure that only a handful of people would notice (she’s made sure she is mostly invisible, after all, and she happens to be quite good at what she does) and she is surer still that they would keep living.

 

They would struggle slightly at first, as is common, but they would not cease to function, not even Killian. 

 

Hell, he might have already moved on and she wouldn’t even know. She wouldn’t even blame him, not when it was so easy for her to get lost with Regina in their dream world. 

 

(Perhaps easy is not the best choice of words, she ponders, it was a bumpy road, but the falling, that was as easy as breathing.)

 

*

 

Regina understands and she feels the same, she tells Emma. And now Emma fully comprehends how she felt on Henry’s birthday.

 

*

 

Her conclusion is that, sadly, life goes on, with or without them.

 

*

 

Regina recovers her anchoring abilities, or perhaps Emma had only thought she had been floating adrift when she was actually merely holding on with a very long chain.

 

Either way, Regina centers her again and she deals.

 

She is not completely okay but she accepts the fact that the world will keep going around trying to make itself better for when they return. (Regina’s words. Sometimes she wonders who was the aspiring teenage poet out of the two of them.)

 

*

 

Emma decides she no longer has mixed feelings about their dream world. 

 

What she has is very strong hate fill feelings towards this hellish room. The dream space is only something they have created and it should be kept separate from their physical surroundings so as not to be tainted by it.

 

In the dream place, she gets to be with Regina, so it is inherently good. 

 

It is also inherently utopian, but that is a topic for a later musing. She is too busy letting Regina lull her to sleep at the moment.

 

*

 

“Oh lord, either my favorite month has arrived or I have died and gone to heaven!” Emma exclaims contentedly as they are woken up before dawn to have the best-looking breakfast she has seen in a year.

 

Regina half-laughs at her excitement because she is really not a morning person.

 

“Regina, please, if I’ve died just let me be in peace, this is too wonderful to have in your eternal life and I don’t want to lose it.”

 

“Emma. Shut up and eat.”

 

Regina is definitely not a morning person.

 

Emma smiles happily anyway and she gladly enjoys the prospect of great food for the rest of the month.

 

By great, she means as good as it ever gets here, which is to say that the standard is quite low.

 

Which also shows just how bad they have been eating for Emma to be ready to go to heaven for food that would otherwise be very mediocre.

 

Again, perspective.

 

*

 

Both Emma and Regina are quite dejected when they realize that they have gone more than a whole year in this place, Ramadan coming and going and coming again. 

 

The food suddenly doesn’t seem like that much of a reason to celebrate.

 

It’s a daytime cuddles kind of day. Fair enough, they have been daytime cuddling for long now but today they both need extra comforting cuddles.

 

*

 

“Have I lost some weight?” 

 

Regina looks at her as if she’s lost her mind but Emma is almost positive that she was only at 26% by her last review.

 

“Yes, darling,” she says slowly as if Emma is incredibly stupid. 

 

Emma just rolls her eyes and ignores her tone.

 

“I _know_ I have but I didn’t really think it was so noticeable but now my pants are almost falling off!”

 

Regina doesn’t say anything except show Emma the space between her own waist and her pants. 

 

“Shit,” she huffs as she plops herself down next to Regina.

 

“Usually women are happier than that to lose some weight,” Regina deadpans.

 

“That’s because our society is ridiculous. Also, I really didn’t need to lose any weight, I’ll disappear if this keeps going.”

 

“Hmm. You won’t be a very nutritious meal when I have to kill you for food, but I think I’ll still be able to survive for a bit longer.”

 

Dear lord, only Regina to make her laugh in this type of situation.

 

*

 

“Regina?”

 

“Nooo,” she groans, still mostly asleep and obviously unhappy to be woken up.

 

“Just letting you know I love you.”

 

“Shut up, Emma,” she groans again trying to cover her face. “This is way too early.”

 

Emma laughs and holds her closer and drifts off to sleep again.

 

*

 

Emma wakes up with a bucket of cold water to the face and she sputters and swears and wipes furiously at her eyes trying to understand what’s happening.

 

Regina is standing in front of her with the crime weapon firmly in her hands and she is smirking smugly.

 

“I love you too, you idiot.” 

 

It doesn’t sound nearly as loving at is probably should, but Regina is _really_ not a morning person. 

 

Regina smiles at her suspiciously sweetly (which makes it all the scarier) and says, “Next time you wake me up before dawn for something so obvious even your pet roach knows, you’ll get a worse treatment.”

 

Emma laughs and laughs and laughs and she just loves this woman so very much.

 

*

 

Emma is also completely terrified of her and she has yet to remove sociopath from the list of possible qualifiers for Regina.

 

*

 

Emma learns broken bones are a bitch to fix when one has literally nothing to set them with.

 

Regina does her best by tightly wrapping some of their rags around Emma’s fingers and Emma is going to be so angry if they don’t set right because she is unfortunately utter shit with her left hand.

 

*

 

“You’re too stubborn,” Regina tells her as Emma lies on her lap and Regina runs her fingers through Emma’s hair.

 

“So are you,” she childishly points out.

 

“Yes, but I know when to stop being stubborn.”

 

“Not everyone is as good an actress as you, Regina,” Emma huffs out in frustration. Her fingers are really fucking sore.

 

“Learn to let go of your pride. You’re too brash, too in their face. You need to learn to submit. Or rather, pretend to submit,” she adds.

 

This is the first time they are coming close to a topic that is more taboo than their attraction towards each other used to be and Emma is not sure why it’s happening now of all times.

 

“That’s easier said than done, Regina. I don’t have your ability to just transform.”

 

Regina takes a deep breath as she considers her next words and Emma watches her argue with herself in fascination.

 

“Next time let them break you. Only a little,” she adds when Emma raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Just give them some insignificant detail but in a way that shows them it is all you know and you are tired of their interrogations.”

 

“If I give them something they will think I know even more. Which I obviously don’t,” she adds for good measure.

 

Regina shakes her head. 

 

“No. Not anything real. Something small that can possibly only be fabricated because they have tortured you for so long that they have finally broken you.”

 

“And I’ve resorted to just making anything up to make them stop?”

 

Regina nods satisfied but Emma shakes her head in return.

 

“I did that already in the first few weeks.”

 

Regina sighs dejectedly and Emma feels the need to justify her apparent failure.

 

“It seemed the logical thing to do back then. I’m just a journalist remember? I’m supposed to break quickly.”

 

Regina looks at her for long, a calculating look in her eyes.

 

“Learn to submit,” is her final conclusion.

 

*

 

Emma is not the best of students when it comes to these things but Regina is the best teacher so Emma learns.

 

*

 

She is happy that her interrogations now take much less time and are much less violent.

 

Again, it’s the little things.

 

*

 

Henry’s sixth birthday is here and Regina had a bad day with capital B.

 

*

 

Regina has a bad week with capital B.

 

*

 

Emma doesn’t know how to console her except be there and it doesn’t seem to be working as well as it usually does.

 

Emma really, really hates these people.

 

*

 

Regina stops counting their days in captivity for the first time in 675 days (579 for Emma because Regina is absolutely meticulous with the details) and for some mysterious reason Emma takes over.

 

*

 

Regina is having a bad month with capital B and Emma is lost. 

 

Her anchor is close to splitting in half and she has no idea what to do to fix it and she is so scared that she will be lost in currents that will take her away from this dream world they have created that she can barely breathe.

 

Emma needs Regina to remain the unwavering force she has always been and she doesn’t know what do to when Regina needs the same thing from her.

 

*

 

Emma tries and tries and tries again and she is extremely and utterly unsuccessful and she can almost feel herself drifting away slowly but surely.

 

*

 

Emma forces herself to snap out of it when she realizes that the reason their dream world exists is that both of them were willing to give and give and give and Emma is not about to ruin that sanctity by being so selfish that all she does is take.

 

Emma will give, and she will give all of herself if she has to if it means that she will get her anchor back together again, even if Emma has to wrap her own chains around it for the extra support.

 

*

 

Emma succeeds sometimes, others she fails. 

 

It’s slow progress but eventually, her successes begin to surpass her failures and she can finally breathe again.

 

*

 

Emma was wrong.

 

Regina is her anchor but Emma is not something that is holding on to it to avoid drifting away.

 

It turns out Emma is Regina’s anchor in her own right, so the more accurate representation of them would be two anchors side by side bound together by unbreakable chains.

 

*

 

Emma likes this new visual and she also very much likes the feeling of being able to give Regina what Regina has given her for so long.

 

*

 

Perhaps Regina has always seen Emma as her anchor just as Emma as seen her.

 

Perspective.

 

*

 

Regina is finally over her bad days with capital B and Emma is in awe of her resilience.

 

*

 

They have a lot more quiet moments now, just enjoying each other and Emma finds that she very much likes that. 

 

She likes feeling Regina’s warm body against her own and she likes just lying there and only focusing on them, ignoring the rest of the world in favor of the dream, a place where they can fully _be_.

 

Emma likes quiet touching time with Regina that transforms into not so quiet passionate time with Regina and she also likes it when it doesn’t transform.

 

*

 

Emma is just very much enjoying Regina.

 

*

 

“Do you miss him?”

 

Emma doesn’t have to specify which him she is asking about.

 

“Yes.”

 

She hums in acknowledgment because she does, too. 

 

Not the same him, obviously.

 

“Are you in love with him?” Regina asks her cautiously and Emma is momentarily overcome with the need to flight because _this_ they don’t do.

 

They talk about their lives outside in general details, they talk about their partners in even more general ways. Asking if Regina misses someone she has shared her life with for years is one thing, Regina asking her about her feelings for someone else is entering some very dangerous terrain.

 

Emma doesn’t like that this makes it feel like the boundary between the dream world and the real world is shifting, becoming less stable and less efficient.

 

“I love him,” she answers, equally as cautious.

 

“English is your first language, Miss Swan, you know very well that’s not what I asked.”

 

Emma is quiet for a long moment and Regina doesn’t push. 

 

“I’m not sure anymore.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“I don’t think I have the ability to be in love with two different people at the same time.”

 

Regina looks at her for a long moment searching for something Emma is not sure she finds.

 

“Do you love Robin?”

 

“Of course.”

 

Emma doesn’t ask if she’s still in love with him. There are certain things she doesn’t want to know.

 

*

 

Regina whispers “I’m in love with _you_ ” when she must think Emma is already asleep.

 

Emma doesn’t let on she hears her and Regina’s breathing evens out eventually while Emma’s heart rate keeps trying to win the marathon.

 

*

 

Somehow Regina’s whispered confession makes Emma more comfortable with talking about their feelings and she does so with more frequency because she feels like Regina needs to.

 

Regina is not like her. She is the type of woman that actually processes what she is feeling and she sometimes needs someone to go over things with and, seeing as there’s only one other person in their room, Emma is her only option.

 

Emma still thinks her way of dealing with things is much better. And by dealing she means not. Avoiding things until they are shoved in your face has such a nicer ring to it.

 

Alas, she is in love and she aims to please her love so she becomes Regina’s semi-reluctant sounding board.

 

*

 

“If we’d met somewhere else,” Regina starts and Emma already knows she won’t like where this is going because nothing that starts with ‘if’ when there can possibly be no ‘ifs’ is a good thing, “What do you think would have happened?”

 

Emma decides to play along because she has come to the conclusion that she is indeed a masochist.

 

“Are we picturing within our reality or a completely alternative universe?”

 

“Both.”

 

“In this reality, is it before or after we were already with other people?”

 

“Both.”

 

“Damn. You're demanding, woman.” Regina flicks her and Emma sticks her tongue out. “Hmm, I’m gonna say if we had met before we met them or if we had met in an alternate universe where they didn’t exist, then we would be together. If we had met in this life but somewhere else instead of this lovely situation than I think we would become each other’s ‘what ifs’.”

 

“Hmm, I agree. Although I think you have to have already been with the person before to be their ‘what if’.”

 

“Nah, I like to make my own rule.”

 

Regina rolls her eyes fondly and Emma smiles cheekily in return.

 

“And in this alternative scenario would there be kids?”

 

“Why of course. Two mommies for Henry instead of one.”

 

Regina hums thoughtfully at that.

 

“That would be quite something.”

 

Emma decides it’s time to leave that conversation because she is starting to picture some very impossible images in her head.

 

*

 

Emma’s heart is a fragile thing, she’s come to learn over the past many, _many_ days of Regina in her life.

 

*

 

Emma’s justification for what comes out of her mouth is that she is having a very unsettling day and it’s very late and she feels a little sleep-drunk. Or a lot.

 

“Do we have a chance?”

 

“Emma…” Regina says in what is half warning half heartbreak and Emma feels the full heartbreak.

 

Emma doesn’t heed the warning because she is stupid and it turns out she has learned nothing in life.

 

“We could. It doesn’t have to stay part of the dream.”

 

“That’s not really how things work, Emma.”

 

“You love me.”

 

Regina nods and there are tears now shinning in her eyes and Emma is a terrible person but she keeps going.

 

“And I love you. And we are _in_ _love_.”

 

“And one of us is married and the other is engaged.”

 

“It’s not like people don’t ever break up, Regina.”

 

Regina looks at her pleadingly but Emma’s stare is unrelenting. 

 

“This is part of the dream, Emma. In here we are just Emma and Regina but out there were are different people, we have separate lives and our paths don’t cross. We’re in this together by force of circumstance and this situation makes everything feel so much…more. We feel too much because we are all there is.”

 

“I would love you anyway,” says stubbornly because it’s true.

 

Regina looks sadly at her and asks, “Would you have cheated on your fiancé?”

 

Emma flinches immediately. 

 

“No, we’re not… We’re not doing _that_. This is a separate world, you said so,” she says brokenly because she can’t handle it if that’s what they were really doing.

 

“Yes darling, it is. This is the dream world which is why this, _us_ , we wouldn’t work outside.”

 

“But I love you so much,” Emma whispers. This is not fair. Her life is really not fair at all.

 

“And I love you and I always will, but you have to know that circumstances make people do things they wouldn’t otherwise do.”

 

“Maybe…” and that’s where Emma stops because she is not sleep-drunk enough to fall into the trap of dwelling in ‘maybes’.

 

Regina looks at her in understanding and she curls closer to Emma holding her tighter to herself.

 

“We have the now, Emma. We have this and we have us and we don’t know how long it will last but we can make the most out it.”

 

Emma is mostly okay with that. She’s been living in the now for a really long time, she’s almost become an expert.

 

*

 

Christmas season is approaching according to Emma’s calendar.

 

They are not nearly as happy and there are no stories to be shared.

 

*

 

They manage to avoid falling into the pit of bad days with capital B by focusing on each other with a renewed sense of urgency.

 

Emma doesn’t know how long she has with Regina (a part of her hopes very little and another part hopes forever, it’s not that hard to know which one is bigger) but she plans to make the most out of it.

 

Regina drinks her up with the same thirst, taking everything Emma has to give as if it is the last time.

 

*

 

Emma is sitting with Regina practically in her lap in a heated make-out session when they hear shots outside and they both instantly duck for cover.

 

They stay down because this is not how they had planned to die and they wait for the gunfire to stop so they can make sense of the situation.

 

The door opens and Regina is on her feet faster than Emma thought possible and she has the intruder on the floor before the others can even make it close. 

 

Emma notices their uniform before Regina does and she stops her from attacking them any further and when understanding registers in Regina’s eyes Emma finds her feelings completely mirrored.

 

Relief. Elation. Joy. 

 

Sadness.

 

Their time is up. 

 

Their dream has ended and they have to wake up now.

 

*

 

It turns out their last time was closer than they had dared believe and they will be spending Christmas at home.

 

Emma finds this the most bittersweet moment in all of eternity.

 

*

 

They’re taken to an army base before they’re flown back home and they are rushed into a medical check-up before they can do anything else.

 

Emma practically throws down the guy who tries to separate her from Regina and Regina looks equally as murderous.

 

*

 

Not yet. It’s not over _yet_. 

 

They will use up whatever time they have left before they have to face their realities.

 

*

 

“You’re both dangerously underweight.”

 

“No shit, doc. They weren’t exactly feeding us like welcomed guests.”

 

She’s snarky. Emma is aware she is being unnecessarily snarky but she can’t really help it and no one is actually judging her. They understand what they’ve been through.

 

“If you’ll excuse us, Emma and I had a very specific list about what we’d do when we got out of that lovely hotel room and it involved several showers, not unnecessary trips to the doctor,” Regina says as she stands to leave, motioning for Emma to follow.

 

“Ma'am, you’re both injured, this is not unnecessary.”

 

“Major, we’ve had these injuries for a really long time and we’re still standing. Are you _sure_ it’s your medical opinion that we can’t withstand a shower in our _fragile_ condition?” Regina asks with a daring eyebrow raised and the man cowers before her.

 

Emma is pleased to note she is not the only one scared of Regina and she would feel sorry for the guy were he not trying to get in the way of her and her shower.

 

*

 

They shower. Together. They are in the desert after all so they need to be eco-friendly.

 

Then they shower again so perhaps they need to reevaluate what parameters eco-friendliness follows.

 

*

 

Emma has never been so glad for clean clothes in her entire life.

 

Regina looks equally as thrilled and Emma is stunned by the image before her.

 

“You look so different,” she says in wonder.

 

Regina rolls her eyes at her, like always.

 

“Clean clothes and a shower can do wonders to a person.”

 

“No. I mean yes, obviously, but not that. From the first time I saw you to now, you’ve changed.”

 

Regina smiles sadly because it’s the first time in two years that she’s seen herself in the mirror and she now understands what Emma sees.

 

Regina is thinner, so much thinner. Her features are sharpened as a result and she looks somehow more fierce. She’s got scars in many new places now and she still has a fresh cut on her cheek from her interrogation three days ago. And her hair, that is perhaps the biggest difference because she had it just above her shoulders when Emma met her and now it falls down her back in unruly curls.

 

She’s still as beautiful as ever.

 

“So have you,” Regina tells her, and yes, she has. 

 

“I _really_ need a haircut,” she tells Regina as she plays with the tips of her hair that now reaches past her ass.

 

Regina laughs at her urgency over a haircut and Emma registers vaguely that this might be one of the last laughs she ever hears from Regina.

 

*

 

It’s definitely the most bittersweet moment.

 

*

 

“Ma’ams, you’re being summoned.”

 

“God, I hate being called Ma’am.”

 

Regina hums her agreement and follows the soldier with a curious look.

 

They’re led into a room where a familiar figure waits for them and Emma has to struggle not to break her controlled demeanor and start laughing.

 

“Miss Nolan, Ms. Mills.”

 

Both Emma and Regina raise curious eyebrows at that. Emma at finally learning Regina’s last name (if that even _is_ her last name) and Regina at learning Emma had lied in giving hers. Well, not lied exactly, it is the name she uses professionally.

 

“Director.”

 

“I’m glad to find you well,” Gold tells them and the small smile he gives them gives Emma the creeps. She much prefers dealing with him when he’s angry.

 

“I’m surprised to see you here in person, Gold,” Regina says with a familiarity that betrays more than simple years of dealing with each other professionally.

 

“We rescued two of my best agents today, where else would I be?”

 

Then Emma laughs. And so does Regina. Gold is left looking at them in bewilderment.

 

“Of course you are,” Emma tells her amused.

 

“I’m not sure I agree with you calling Emma one of your best, Gold, I made her as soon as I met her,” Regina says haughtily with her teasing smirk.

 

“Oh please! I did so, too!”

 

Regina snorts in disbelief but her eyes are twinkling with amusement.

 

Gold looks from one to the other and huffs in frustration. 

 

“Well, at least you _tried_ to maintain your cover.”

 

“Of course.”

 

“We’re pros, what is this, our first rodeo?”

 

“You’ve been held hostage before?” Regina asks her curiously.

 

Emma bristles, offended. 

 

“Of course not, didn’t you hear him? I’m one of the best!” 

 

“Obviously, which is why you ended up captured,” Regina deadpanned.

 

“So did you!” Emma childishly points out.

 

“It was a trap!” 

 

“And I was ambushed!”

 

Gold clears his throat and they both look down in shame, lips pursed trying to hide their amusement.

 

“Anyway, you two deserve some rest. You both did very well, all that misinformation let us right to them.”

 

“Took you your sweet time though,” Emma grumbles.

 

Gold shrugs and doesn’t look nearly as apologetic as he should. Emma thinks he has lost (if he ever even possessed it) the ability to care too much about things. 

 

“They found out we were coming, you were moved.”

 

Regina sobers up at that.

 

“A mole?”

 

“It has been dealt with,” he says cryptically. 

 

Emma has a feeling Regina learned her sociopathic tendencies from Gold.

 

She concludes it’s best not to cross either of them if one hopes to live a long life with all body parts attached to one’s body. 

 

“Go rest, we’ll talk more tomorrow.”

 

They don’t need to be told twice.

 

*

 

“682 days, Regina,” Emma tells the woman lying naked in her arms that night. “How am I supposed to pretend 682 days of you never happened?”

 

“You’re not supposed to pretend, Emma. You’re supposed to cherish the memories.”

 

“While I live on happily for the rest of my life?” Emma asks derisively.

 

Regina looks at her with a sad smile. “While you _try_ to.”

 

Emma thinks ‘try’ really is the keyword. 

 

She also thinks she will have a very hard time trying to be happy without the only source of happiness she had for those 682 days.

 

*

 

They are flying to separate places tomorrow and Emma feels the deadline like a ceiling slowly lowering itself until she has no more room to avoid being crushed.

 

Emma decides to go down fighting nonetheless and she spends their remaining hours together taking in every inch of Regina and showing her how much she loves her.

 

She thinks she ran out of words to say hours ago.

 

*

 

Emma is perhaps the biggest idiot there is in the history of the world.

 

She’s watching the woman she loves board a military plane to who knows where. Certainly not Emma because she didn’t ask. Emma has no idea where Regina even lives. 

 

All she knows is that they’re flying to different countries and that this is a bullshit situation very much comparable to the one they’re leaving behind.

 

*

 

Emma concludes her insanity levels have reached a troublesome 47%.

 

*

 

Emma decides to follow Regina’s advice and try.

 

Somedays she succeeds better than others.

 

*

 

Today Emma utterly fails and dials the number which has remained unused for 243 days. (Emma is still counting, only now she’s counting something else.)

 

“Hello?”

 

“Emma.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in my head this goes in one direction, but I thought I'd let everyone decide if they get their shit together and live their hectic spy lives together or not.
> 
> Thanks for reading and commenting! :D


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Turns out I caved to peer pressure and I felt like we could use a happy ending :D
> 
> In case you were happy with how the story ended, just ignore this chapter ;)
> 
> Hope you like it.

Emma is completely unsurprised that she caved first.

 

In fact, the only surprise about her situation was that it took her so long to do it.

 

*

 

She got back and the world had kept on turning while she had stayed in her box in the desert for 682 days. And that had meant that either the Emma that came out was not the same as the one that had gotten in, or that the world had changed so completely that it had left her behind.

 

She thinks it was probably a combination of both.

 

The end result, though, is what really matters.

 

Emma didn’t fit into this different world.

 

Also, the most important part of it was missing: Regina.

 

*

 

The solution was quite obvious. She just couldn’t stay with Killian. It wasn’t fair to him and her heart couldn’t take it. There was a huge Regina-sized hole right in the middle of it and nothing short of her could fill it.

 

*

 

He didn’t seem too devastated by that and she can’t say she was too surprised either. It had been practically two years of being apart and a part of her knew that he was never the type of man to wait around for long.

 

She didn’t ask though, she didn’t want to know about any possible woman who’d replaced her, much like she didn’t want to tell him about the woman who’d replaced him.

 

That was where she drew the line.

 

She needed to keep her two worlds separate, even as they seemed to be crashing together at an immeasurable speed.

 

*

 

She kept going forward, taking it day by day. It was truly ridiculous how, even under all the training she’d had, there was only so much her brain could cope with without getting permanent (or hopefully not so permanent) damage.

 

*

 

Nights were the hardest.

 

At night, she couldn’t escape Regina. In her sleep, she’d go back to the dream world and the sheer vividness of it left her waking up thrashing and screaming with tears running down her face as her heart threatened to stop with the pure amount to pain the longing caused.

 

At night, she would also hear Regina’s screams, constant and horrifying and so deeply shattering that her heart would be in pieces when she finally managed to tear herself from the nightmare.

 

At night, she wished for nothing more than the comfort of the woman she’d fallen in love with, the woman who’d taken her heart and wrapped it in the most precious of blankets and taken it with her. The woman who gave her both the best and worst memories of her life.

 

The woman who was probably in the arms of her husband.

 

*

 

Emma’s therapist was having a field day with her, that was for sure.

 

*

 

So, it really is unsurprising that she caved first.

 

The surprising bit is that Regina caved too.

 

*

 

Emma is nervous and she’s worked her whole life to not let any signs of nervousness show, has, in fact, to make sure of it in order to do the job she does, and yet here she is. Nervously playing with the necklace around her neck, a necklace that has become her most prized possession.

 

Regina’s eyes find hers and then zoom in on her nervous hands and Emma blushes like a kid caught stealing cookies from Santa’s plate.

 

There’s an undercurrent of competitiveness between them now, now that it’s out in the open what they both are, now that they don’t have to hide. There’s an edge in the air that drives them to show how good they truly are, a compulsion to impress the other.

 

Emma’s fingers are therefore traitorous things which she half wishes had been cut off during their captivity.

 

Well, _no_. She definitely doesn’t wish that. Not only is she very fond of them but so is Regina.

 

But she definitely wishes that they would stop with the uncontrollable fidgeting.

 

There’s just nothing she can do about it. Regina, who once made her so calm just by being there, now makes her equally as nervous.

 

*

 

Regina looks beautiful.

 

Regina _is_ beautiful, but her beauty had been chopped at and beaten and slightly dimmed and Emma only truly notices this when she’s face to face with a Regina who is just raw.

 

She’s healthy and immaculate and her hair is shorter than it had been when Emma had first met her and her eyes are no longer sunken and dull and they shine so bright and so warm that Emma thinks her heart might need some special assistance to learn how to beat properly again after looking into them.

 

Regina is stunning and Emma is breathless.

 

*

 

Regina is also missing a wedding ring and Emma wants to smack her observant mind from here to Sunday for constantly noticing the little details but she can’t.

 

And she also can’t un-notice.

 

*

 

They end up in bed almost as quickly as they lay eyes on each other and the rational part of Emma’s brain knows very well that there was a whole taxi ride spent in static silence and stolen glances and hesitant touches, and there was a whole charged moment before that where they had just stared at each other in the middle of the coffee shop before they had jumped to each other's arms in an embrace that was perhaps too intimate for the very public setting they were in but none of them cared.

 

The other part of her brain, along with the rest of her body, only knows one thing, and that is Regina.

 

Her eyes only focus on hers, and her hands itch to touch every inch of her, and her lips crave hers, and so time freezes and jumps at random intervals until she’s lost in a sea of Regina in the middle of a hotel room in Mallorca.

 

*

 

She wakes up slowly and for a moment the familiar yet ghost-like sensation of another body ( _her_ body) next to hers sends her mind to a place she can never truly leave and she startles, jumps off and sits up suddenly, heart hammering with a speed that could rival a humming bird’s wings.

 

Fear courses through her in waves and it’s only the soft, gentle and, again, intimately familiar touch that slowly calms her down and brings her back to reality.

 

“It’s the real world.”

 

Regina’s voice is soothing and her eyes are soft and understating and there are pools of pain in them that mirror Emma’s own.

 

Emma takes a deep breath as Regina keeps running her fingers up and down her arm and, when she feels like she’s got her body under control again, she allows herself to lean back into those arms she had never wanted to leave.

 

*

 

“I get them, too,” Regina says, arms slung protectively over Emma.

 

Emma looks up at her and feels her heart ache with pain for both of them.

 

“Often?”

 

Regina hums. “Not as often as in the beginning.”

 

“I get them every night,” Emma says and quickly wishes she hadn’t because the look in Regina’s eyes is just too much. And yet her mouth can't seem to be stopped. “I keep dreaming of you, good and bad,” she says and Regina’s eyes darken with understanding, “But then I wake up and you’re not there and I—”

 

She puts a stop to it there, for both their sakes.

 

They made their choice. Regina made her choice, and Emma will not make her feel guilty for it. She will not.

 

“I’m here now,” Regina says, and that is everything Emma needs to hear.

 

*

 

“How have you been?”

 

It feels like this is something that should’ve been asked first, get the small talk out of the way before falling into bed with someone.

 

Well, she supposes they never did do anything the normal way, they’re not about to start now.

 

“I’ve been taking it one day at a time,” Regina says.

 

Now isn’t that the theme for their whole life at the moment.

 

“The world kept spinning and it forgot we weren’t rotating with it.”

 

“The real world is a bitch,” Regina says in that sassy tone of hers and Emma can do nothing but snort out a laugh.

 

“I have a feeling you made it your bitch in no time,” she teases and Regina smirks smugly.

 

“I do have my ways.”

 

Emma laughs and kisses her smug smile off her face and the warm feeling in her chest grows and grows until she’s close to exploding.

 

This is her Regina. This is the woman she fell in love with.

 

*

 

It’s night and their defenses have slowly started to lower as soon as the sun went down and so it is no surprise that when Regina speaks up it is both out of the blue and something deeply vulnerable.

 

It seems only fitting.

 

“Henry didn’t recognize me.”

 

Her voice is as broken as Emma has ever heard it and the echo of it leaves Emma completely hollow.

 

She looks at Regina, silently willing her to keep going because she has no idea what to say to that.

 

“There are photos of me in the house, but he…” She swallows and closes her eyes and Emma wipes the tears that fall down her cheek with the gentlest of fingers. “He didn’t remember and I looked so different that he didn’t recognize me.” She pauses and Emma holds her breath, knowing that there’s more and feeling that it’s breaking Regina to even think of it. “He cried, Emma. He cried when I tried to hold him and he flinched like I— My own son was scared of me.”

 

Emma thought her heart had lost the capacity to shatter a long time ago, had thought it had broken in the smallest of pieces in that hellhole in the desert.

 

Emma is proven wrong.

 

*

 

She holds Regina as she cries and Emma feels her own unstoppable tears and she doesn’t know what else to do for the woman she loves except hold onto her and not let her float adrift.

 

Emma needs to be her anchor.

 

*

 

The sun comes up slowly and they watch it filter through the curtains, light flecks illuminating the dancing particles in the air.

 

She feels Regina’s even breath on her chest, feels her skin, smoother and softer than she’s ever felt it, warm on hers. Feels the way her heart beats, almost in tandem with hers.

 

She hopes that Regina’s heart is slowly mending. Hopes that her presence is enough to help Regina find all the scattered little pieces of her shattered heart and glue them back together.

 

She knows for sure that that is what’s happening with her own heart.

 

Little by little, broken piece by broken piece, she can feel her heart becoming whole.

 

She can feel her Regina-shaped hole filling up again.

 

*

 

Emma thinks this is one of the best feelings in the world.

 

*

 

She only notices what her fingers have been doing for the past however many minutes when Regina speaks.

 

“I ended it.”

 

It’s simple. An uncontested statement. Put out into the world just like that, like it’s just another fact.

 

Emma’s heart very much disagrees with this nonchalance as it begins to rapidly beat in her chest.

 

Her fingers stall in their movements leaving them pathetically hovering over Regina’s ring finger.

 

“Why?”

 

It’s a stupid question. Probably the stupidest question Emma has ever asked and Regina would say that that is indeed a great feat considering her repertoire.

 

And yet it’s a question that she very much needs an answer to while at the same time dreading it with her every fiber.

 

Regina looks at her, her brown eyes filled with so much emotion that Emma’s speed-racing heart does a little summersault before continuing its sprint.

 

“He wasn’t you.”

 

And that is apparently that.

 

*

 

Emma had spent 682 marveling at the human brain and its affinity for routines, so it truly doesn’t surprise her that, once they find themselves between four walls, they fall into the same mental trap.

 

A closed room was all they knew for what felt like a lifetime. It was the only place where they knew how to be. It was the only place where they felt some semblance of safety, that and each other’s arms.

 

So it really doesn’t surprise her that as soon as they get into the hotel room they unconsciously go back to how it was.

 

They don’t leave the room for five days straight.

 

*

 

It doesn’t surprise her, but that is not to say that she is aware of it at first.

 

All that she is consciously aware of is that she has the woman she loves back in her arms and she has no intention of letting go, no plans to take any risks with outside interferences.

 

But, slowly, the little something that had been nudging her at the back of her mind becomes louder and louder until she realizes that she has been glancing at the window for days without even stepping a foot into the balcony.

 

*

 

Emma knew she was right.

 

Humans and their affinity for routines would be her undoing.

 

*

 

They make the effort. And it truly is an effort.

 

It feels wrong, it feels uneasy.

 

It feels unsafe.

 

It feels like anything will just tear them apart and Emma itches for the comfort of those four walls behind a locked door and she holds Regina’s hand tighter and tighter until she’s sure that it must be hurting her but Regina doesn’t say a word because she is holding on just as tightly.

 

*

 

They survive.

 

Somehow they survive the outside world and their breathing starts to come out easier and Emma’s chest starts to loosen until the tight ball of anxiety is reduced from basketball sized to a perfectly manageable tennis ball size.

 

Regina’s smile is tremulous and her eyes have an edge to them but she _is_ smiling and she _is_ enjoying the sun and the grass beneath their feet and that is all that matters.

 

*

 

Emma can’t say that she forgot how good it feels to get lost in Regina’s arms, but she realizes that her memories just couldn’t capture everything that comes with it.

 

Every single nerve ending of hers feels simultaneously raw and on fire, their sensitivity increased tenfold and attuned to all things Regina.

 

Regina’s voice as it catches, how hoarse it gets when she’s feeling too much, how breathless it sounds when Emma’s in her; those are all things that her brain had simply tried and failed to completely replicate.

 

And those are all the sounds that Emma wishes to fill her mind with, those and only those.

 

*

 

She knows that there is a part of her mind specifically filled with the other types of sounds that Regina makes, the ones that leave her scratching and hollow, and this part is, unfortunately, the one that her brain can perfectly conjure up memories of.

 

She still dreams of those screams.

 

She still wakes up violently and filled with agony. But now she has Regina there to comfort her and she thinks that those dreams might begin to slowly go away. She thinks that her brain might start to replace them with the sounds that she now hears incessantly.

 

She hopes.

 

*

 

When she wakes up from those dreams she’s developed a habit that is perhaps particularly strange, maybe even unhealthy.

 

She wakes up with tears in her eyes and she lets Regina hold her and she starts to slowly kiss every single scar of hers, all the ones whose creation she witnessed.

 

She doesn’t know what to make of it, but she thinks it helps her.

 

*

 

Their problem all along was the real world, so it is no surprise that Emma feels nervous beyond belief as their final days in this different kind of dream world approach.

 

She glances at Regina who looks peaceful in her chair by the pool, skin glowing in the sun, and she can’t hold her thoughts in any longer.

 

“What happens next?”

 

Her voice is barely more than a whisper and she winces at the vulnerability that she couldn’t conceal but then Regina’s eyes meet hers and she relaxes. This is Regina. Even if she rejects her, she knows that they’ll always have this.

 

Regina looks at her for a long moment until her lips start to form a smile that grows and grows and Emma’s traitorous heart surges with hope at the sight of it. At the sight of _her_. She knows what she sees, knows the love in her eyes as intimately as the sound of those three words whispered in her ear, but she still can't completely allow herself to believe until she hears it.

 

“We try.”

 

*

 

They try.

 

And they make it.

 

*

 

It turns out their dream world could merge with the real one after all.


End file.
